


The Tainted Blood of the Father

by StarLight_Massacre



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-19 18:53:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 48,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4757222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarLight_Massacre/pseuds/StarLight_Massacre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry has broken away from his chains after the Dursleys go too far. A simple desire to make a withdrawal from Gringotts leads to something much larger and exposes more than he ever knew about himself. A rushed, impulsive trip to America changes his entire life as he might have just found himself a true family to call his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Break Away

Author: StarLight Massacre

 

Title: The Tainted Blood of the Father

 

Rating: M

 

Warning: Mentions of child abuse and neglect. Explicit injuries. Vulgar language. Mentions of sex. Violence. Mentions of past deaths.

 

Pairing: N/A

Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Harry Potter or Supernatural; all rights go to J. K. Rowling and Eric Kripke respectively. I make no money for this piece of fictional writing and never will.

 

Summary: Harry broke away from his chains after the Dursleys go too far. A simple withdrawal from Gringotts exposes more than he ever knew about himself. A rushed, impulsive trip to America changes his entire life as he might have found himself a true family.

 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- X

 

The Tainted Blood of the Father

 

Chapter One – Break Away

 

Harry was just fourteen when everything went really wrong. His mind was anguished from the events that had taken place in the graveyard with Voldemort and his Death Eaters. It tortured him night and day, he couldn’t forget, because he couldn’t unsee what had happened that night, he couldn’t forget the utter horror of witnessing the death of Cedric Diggory. Not when he had been the one to insist that they take the cup together in the first place. It should have been just him touching that cup, it should have been him. ‘Kill the spare’ echoed through his mind in a high, cold whisper and he shivered in fear and revulsion. Goose bumps broke out all over his body and the hand holding the cleaner soaked cloth quivered.

He could barely stay asleep for a handful of hours before he was awake again due to nightmares and if he didn’t wake himself up, then he was beaten awake by his Uncle because he was screaming in his sleep. That was happening more and more often these days too and he often had a bruised face, a split lip or a black eye because of it. His Uncle, in his disturbed sleep addled state, aimed for his face and head as his body was usually writhing or thrashing with his nightmares.

He had been sent straight back to the Dursleys after the school term had ended, after he’d seen Cedric murdered in front of him, despite him begging to be sent anywhere else. He’d all but pleaded to stay anywhere other than at Privet Drive, but no one had listened to him, no one ever listened to him. So he’d been sent back to these vile, cruel people to be beaten, starved and locked away from the human contact that he so desperately needed at the moment. He needed someone to care for him, he needed someone to help him, he’d all but asked for that when he’d begged not to come here this summer and he had been rejected once again. He should have known that it was too much to ask for. No one cared. No one wanted to care about him, they all just forgot about him as soon as he wasn’t there. He hadn’t had a single letter from Ron or Hermione, not even Sirius. They didn’t even care enough about him to make sure that he was dealing alright after the end of the last term. He wasn’t dealing with it at all.

His friends weren’t sending him any letters at all, but that wasn’t the worst of it, no, because they weren’t even responding to the letters that he was sending to them as often as he could with Hedwig and he felt like he was going out of his mind with the overwhelming sense of abandonment, the cruel loss of their support coupled with the torment that he suffered with every single night. It was even affecting him when he was awake now and he walked around like a mindless zombie most of the time. Things couldn’t carry on like this, he wasn’t going to last.

He wasn’t being fed, he wasn’t getting any sleep and he was being kicked around and punched when he was dragged out of his small prison to do a list of daily chores for Petunia that was longer than his arm. Even she had taken to slapping him across the face whenever he stumbled due to the weakness in his knees which was caused by lack of food and exhaustion. If they’d just feed him more than meagre crumbs then he wouldn’t be so weak and he wouldn’t stumble around like he was drunk on vintage Firewhiskey.

But not only was she slapping him at every opportunity, she’d also taken a swing at him with the frying pan, yet again, when he’d gotten lost in his grief and a side plate had slipped through his shaky fingers to smash on the kitchen floor. He still had the cuts on his fingers from picking up the sharp shards of china as quickly as he could with Petunia towering above him shouting abuse at him about how useless and stupid he was and how he was ‘going to get what was coming to him’ for smashing one of her favourite, valuable, plates.

He longed to go up to his room, take Gryffindor’s sword out of his trunk and stab her right through the head with it, he wanted to stab all of the Dursleys with it, but he didn’t. Killing them wasn’t the answer, he knew that and they’d just love it if he was thrown into prison for life, so the sword stayed locked up in his school trunk. That didn’t stop him from imagining it though…or fantasising about actually doing it.

He knew that strictly speaking he wasn’t even supposed to have the sword, but when he’d touched it, pulled it out of the hat and swung it around before stabbing it through the basilisk’s open mouth, he’d had an overwhelming sense of ‘mine’, that this sword was his and his alone and that he should keep it and so he’d kept it, unable to fight his longing for it, his _need_ to have it for his own.

He’d told Dumbledore that the sword had been wedged into the basilisk’s skull and that he’d been unable to pull it out again, that he hadn’t cared about some dirty, old sword in that moment, only about getting Ginny, and himself, out of the chamber and to safety.

He was sure that his hoarding tendencies came from the Dursleys and their lifelong abuse of him. He’d had to scavenge for everything he had, hell he kept _food_ under a loose floorboard in his bedroom just so he wouldn’t starve to death when they locked him up for days on end. But when he’d been younger, he had also taken and hidden small toys that Dudley had either broken or forgotten about so that he could have something to play with when he was locked up in his cupboard and now that he was older, he was still hoarding things, but his attentions had drifted towards more useful, unusual things rather than the childish want of having just one toy to call his own.

Before he’d left the school at the end his second year, he’d snuck back down to the chamber under his invisibility cloak and he’d retrieved the sword he’d left down there to collect at a later date. He’d also picked up the eight inch, gently curved basilisk fang that had snapped off and gone into his arm. It had been physically impossible for him to leave it once he’d seen it, his mind had grated at the very thought of not picking it up, of not taking it with him when no one else would ever miss it. He’d tried to walk past it, back out to the entrance of the chamber, but his eyes had gravitated towards the fang, lying on the damp, stone floor and it was almost a physical compulsion that had had him bending down to pick it up, to take it with him because it was _his_. As always with these little trinkets, he’d been unable to leave it behind once he’d seen it.

It had looked so innocent when he’d picked it up, just a harmless fang now that it was detached from the giant snake, but his blood was still on the very tip and it was huge and thick in his small hand. It was a thrill just to touch it, he wanted to possess it, it was his after all.

He’d been careful to wrap the fang up in strips of fabric that he’d ripped off of one of his old shirts that had been too holey to wear and he’d taken even more precaution as he’d then put the wrapped fang into a warded box a few weeks later. He’d gone to Diagon Alley in the summer before his third year and found the strange, powerful little box in Knockturn Alley when he’d gone to find something, anything, that could possibly contain the incredibly venomous fang. Not that he’d be telling anyone that he’d gone down there several times already to look for unusual items, of course. They might have gotten it into their heads to try and stop him from going down the Alley in future, or even worse, they might have tried to take the objects that he’d already bought and owned from him. He wouldn’t let anyone take his possessions from him. They were his.

He was drawn to rare and uncommon items, he wanted to own them. He wanted them so badly that he couldn’t help just…taking them. That was the conditioned hoarder in him rearing its head. He needed to have them, it was the same need that had had him keeping the sword for himself instead of handing it over and picking up the basilisk fang on a whim, just because he’d seen it, because he’d wanted to own it.

For even more added precaution for keeping the venomous fang in his possession, because he was a little paranoid after having had the fang in his arm and the basilisk’s venom rush through his blood, before he’d left for the summer at the end of his third year he’d asked Fawkes to cry into several vials for him when Dumbledore had left him alone in his office for an hour after Sirius’ escape. The several vials of pearly tears he had were so valuable that each one on its own would be considered priceless, but Harry didn’t want to sell them, perhaps why Fawkes had freely given his tears to him in the first place. Fawkes had then burst into flames and turned into a featherless newborn right before his eyes. Harry had scooped up some of the ashes as well when the newborn Fawkes had nudged some of it towards him and he had taken a tail feather too before he sat cradling the baby Phoenix on his lap until Dumbledore had come back from dealing with the Heads of Houses and the Minister for Magic, Harry had timed his moment to strike perfectly.

He’d sat and talked to Dumbledore about not wanting to go back to the Dursleys, of wanting to be with Sirius, but still he had been sent back with a careless wave of an old, withered hand and a sighed, ‘you need to go to your blood relatives, Harry’. That had been last year and this year, he was still being sent back to the Dursleys, year after year as the abuses only got worse. He’d only been back for a week and he was already starving, exhausted and various shades of black and blue.

He had withdrawn from nearly everyone at the end of the last year, what he’d seen in the Graveyard was too much for him to handle, he hadn’t wanted any company and he hadn’t gotten any either and now that he needed a bit of comfort, he was cruelly cut off and his friends weren’t even answering his letters. He’d had enough.

He scrubbed at the spotless fridge harder, his arm aching as he hadn’t had anything to eat at all yesterday and he hadn’t had been allowed to have breakfast today either. The last time he’d eaten had been the day before yesterday and only then it had been a tin of cold soup in the evening. Today he’d been told that he could only have lunch, a slice of dry, white bread, if he finished exactly half of his exceedingly long chore list before midday. Half of the chores on the list were a waste of time, as Petunia was fighting to find things for him to do, the damn fridge had been spotless when he’d started cleaning it, this was just a waste of time and precious energy as he buffered the inside of the door viciously with the cloth to combat invisible grime and germs.

 

“You missed a spot, freak.”

 

Harry’s entire body tensed as he heard his cousin, Dudley’s, voice. He hated Dudley with a passion and he listened intently as the vile man collapsed into a chair at the table behind him, panting from the momentous exertion that walking down the stairs to the kitchen from his bedroom had taken on him.

He tried to ignore the disgusting sounds of Dudley eating the plate of cupcakes that had been a centrepiece on the kitchen table, but he still felt queasy. He hadn’t eaten anything and now, he thought that if he by some miracle got half of the chore list done and was actually given his promised slice of bread, then he’d vomit.

How anyone could wake up at ten in the morning and have twenty-four cupcakes for breakfast was completely beyond his comprehension. He’d sell his soul for a piece of warm, buttery toast or a few spoons of milky cereal, all he had under his floorboard was chocolate, but his body was craving savoury things. He needed fibre, vegetables and salty things, all chocolate could offer him was sugar, but at least it kept him alive.

 

“Duddums, do you have everything you need?”

 

Harry’s shoulders hunched as Petunia came into the kitchen and fussed about her twenty-five year old son. It was disgusting and ridiculous that Petunia still waited on Dudley hand and foot and treated him like he was still a small child who couldn’t do anything for himself.

 

“I need some crisps.” Dudley demanded piggishly.

 

“Boy, get the crisps for Dudley from the cupboard.”

 

Harry let his arm drop from where he was furiously cleaning an already clean fridge and he went to the adjacent counter and opened the top cupboard. Petunia knew that he was too short to reach the crisps in the top and he knew that she wouldn’t accept him climbing the clean counters to get them. As usual, he was set up to fail before he’d even started.

 

“Hurry up, freak!” Dudley shouted at him. “Stop standing there and get me my crisps!”

 

“I can’t reach them.” He said calmly.

 

“Stop complaining and get me my crisps!” Dudley shouted at him, going red in the face, just like his disgusting Father did.

 

Clenching his jaw, Harry did the only thing that he could do in this situation, he dragged a chair over to the cupboard and stood on it to get the large bag of crisps down from the top of the cupboard. Before he could step down, however, he’d been viciously shoved off of the chair and he fell hard onto the edge of the countertop and then to the floor, screaming from the agony it caused him. He thought that he might have broken several ribs from hitting the counter as he had.

 

“Shut up, boy!” Petunia hissed furiously at him. “The neighbours will hear you!”

 

Harry bit his bottom lip and worked it between his teeth as he tried not to scream or shout out as Dudley sniggered at him from the table, where he’d sat back down after shoving him from the chair. Of course Petunia would shout at him for screaming in pain when it had been her fat, stupid son who’d caused the pain in the first place, as she’d just stood there and watched, he should add.

 

“Get up the stairs you useless freak!” Petunia demanded furiously as she gave him a solid kick with her disgusting peach leather loafers, making Dudley snigger even more.

 

Harry didn’t think he could move, but after another kick that caught his chin, making him bite clean through his lip, he forced himself to sit up and, not caring about the humiliation or the lack of dignity, he crawled slowly, painfully, out of the kitchen and up the stairs to Dudley’s cruel laughs and taunts.

He made it to his bedroom and he hauled himself onto his small, ratty bed and he curled up and he cried as silently as he could into his filthy pillow that didn’t even have a pillowcase.

He heard someone stomp up the stairs a few minutes after he’d crawled into bed and they locked him in without saying a word. He just buried his face back into his pillow and he cried harder and for longer, until he gave himself a throbbing headache. 

He’d had enough, he couldn’t put up with this any longer. He had to get away or there was the very real possibility of him being seriously injured or even killed. He had to get away no matter what anyone else said or thought, he could not stay here, not even for another day longer.

He hobbled over to his battered desk and he broke Hedwig out of her dirty cage by bending and then breaking off the thin metal bars before squeezing her very carefully through the larger, wider spaced bars on his window and letting her go so that she could fly free. He didn’t know where he was going or how long he’d be, so it was better for her if she could fly to where he ended up instead of him carrying her in her filthy cage through the Muggle world.

He packed up all his things into his trunk and he sat on his bed with it, slowly massaging his throbbing ribs to try and make them feel less painful, it didn’t work and he silently fumed and cursed at Dudley for being a foul, evil bastard.

He waited for an hour and forty minutes until Petunia came by with his afternoon glass of water. He had missed lunch and once again, he hadn’t been fed. He didn’t know why he expected anything different, he’d gone for days without being fed a single morsel before and he knew from experience that just because he’d been hurt or beaten, didn’t mean he’d get any food.

Petunia usually just shoved the water through the cat flap at the bottom of his door, but when he heard her on the landing outside his door he asked quietly and softly if he could go to the bathroom to clean himself up.

Grumbling and complaining about pandering to him, she ‘graciously’ allowed him out, but he barged right past her when she opened the locks on his door, almost hitting her with his trunk as he did so, ignoring her shrieks as he agilely ducked the glass of water that was thrown at his head. He smiled grimly as it smashed against the wall, destroying a framed picture of an ugly baby Dudley in the process.

 

“You useless _freak_! Get back here and get back in your room or Vernon will hear of this!” She screeched after him in anger, using the age old threat of getting Vernon to beat him when he got in from work.

 

He clattered down the stairs, ignoring her threats and the promise of a beating later. He didn’t care any longer as he dragged his trunk clumsily behind him, banging the wall and scraping the wallpaper as he reached the bottom of the staircase.

He yanked the front door open and the last thing he saw as he slammed it closed again was Dudley’s surprised, food smeared face still sat at the kitchen table and unable to move his bulk to give chase to him as he’d once done when they were both younger.

He threw his wand arm out at the curb, as he’d done by accident two summers ago, and, with a massive bang and the sudden, heart pounding appearance that still took him by complete surprise, he quickly climbed onto the purple, triple decked Knight Bus before any of the neighbours could see him or Petunia could come after him and drag him back into the house by his hair, as she’d done several times before when he hadn’t been quick enough to fully escape.

He shoved ten sickles into the conductor’s hand, asking to be taken to Diagon Alley before Stan Shunpike could even ask, forestalling any conversation as he sat in an armchair near the back. He averted his gaze, letting Stan know without words that he was in absolutely no mood to talk. It didn’t stop the clueless man from trying to wheedle answers from him regardless and sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong with invasive questions.

 

“Why ‘choo all bruised up, ‘Arry?”

 

The annoying man asked first and stood waiting for Harry to answer, but when it became clear that he wouldn’t answer, he tried again.

 

“Why ‘choo running away for?”

 

But as Harry refused to answer any questions or be drawn into any semblance of a conversation, Stan soon gave up and went back to the front of the bus with Ernie without any answers to his curious, nosy questions.

Harry was jolted around as the bus moved, biting his lip as the painful lurches caused spikes of agony throughout his body, most particularly his ribs, and rattled his aching brain in his pounding head. The sudden stops as the bus either let someone off or picked someone up sent him crashing to the floor in a heap of pain as he stifled cries and gasps of agony.

Once again, he picked himself up off of the floor and crawled back into the armchair, curling up around his already battered and bruised body. He hated the Knight Bus, it was one of the worst ways possible to travel and that was saying a lot when he hated Portkeys and Floo travel as well. The only form of magical transportation that he actually liked was flying, but despite having his Firebolt with him, his ribs and head hurt far too much to fly all the way to London and he had no way to attach his trunk to his broom. It had to be the Knight Bus if he wanted to get the hell away from the Dursleys and he did, more than anything, even if it meant enduring this agony for a while longer.

Once arrived at Diagon Alley, after many stops all over the country before his, Harry stumbled his way through The Leaky Cauldron with his bulky trunk in tow and he went straight out onto the cobble stones of Diagon Alley before he made his way straight to Gringotts bank, still exhausted, still in need of something to eat and now in more pain than ever, but he had no idea how long it would take Dumbledore to find out that he was missing from the Dursleys, so he was going to grab some money and buy some things that he wanted first. If he found just one item that he liked that settled his hoarding urges, then it would have been worth it. 

He’d grown a real taste for the obscure, like the warded box that he’d put the basilisk fang into and his possessive feelings over Gryffindor’s sword. Not to mention the tears, ash and tail feather he’d collected from Fawkes. He liked obscure things that no one else was likely to have. They were his and he needed to have them. Just running the items he already had through his fingers made him feel better and he did wonder if it was some sort of coping mechanism he used to try and make sense of everything that went on in his life. He seemed to touch them more often when he was stressed or in pain. Even now he wanted to touch one of them, he was thinking about those items and buying new ones, just to comfort himself, because his inanimate objects had comforted him more than any one person ever had, because people didn’t care about him.

He made it to the bank without too much jostling or crowding, his heavy, bulky trunk that he was dragging behind him made this a little easier as no one wanted to get hit by it, and he walked up to a free teller.

 

“Hello. I’d like to withdraw some money from my vault.” He said quietly as he tried not to show the hideous bruise across the one side of his face.

 

He failed as the goblin teller stared at the vivid bruise on his cheek and under his chin. He hadn’t thought of his bruises when he’d come out today, he’d just wanted to get the hell away from Privet Drive after the attack in the kitchen. It was only when Stan Shunpike had asked him why he was bruised that he’d remembered that Vernon had smacked him in the face the other day and that not three hours ago he’d been kicked in the chin which had made him bite through his very sore lip. It’s not like he could have done anything about them anyway while he was underage and stuck with the Dursleys as they were Muggles.

 

“Slinope will take you.” The teller told him after getting over the shock of seeing him with a busted face and Harry was led away by the afore mentioned Slinope, who’d come scuttling over immediately once her name had been called.

 

They took a different route through the bank to the one that Harry remembered from before his first year at Hogwarts. He frowned as he followed the goblin, even more confused, through a twisting maze of long corridors that had more corridors branching off of it, some of which seemed to end suddenly with a solid stone wall with no visible door in sight. Harry’s ribs had started throbbing with every step as he dragged his heavy trunk behind him and his head pounded the more he walked and he didn’t know how much further he could go when Slinope stopped and opened one of the doors on the main corridor and ushered him inside a random room and he suddenly found himself in an office.

 

“Why am I here, Slinope? I only wanted to make a withdrawal.” He said, now very confused.

 

“Now that we finally have you here alone, we’d like to go over your vaults with you and review your personal information.” Slinope told him curtly. “We usually do this with our clients once a year, however you have never responded to our summons, so the bank managers have decided to intercept you.”

 

“Oh, okay.” He said as he frowned. He still didn’t fully understand what was happening or why.

 

He sat in a squashy armchair, his trunk at his feet, waiting in the room with Slinope, who was pulling open drawers and pulling out thick folders and piling them up on the desk between them. Harry was a little nervous, but he tried not to let it show as he fiddled with the cuff of his jumper.

Despite it being the beginning of the summer, and actually quite warm out, he had to wear the jumper because of the cuts and bruises on his arms. He really hated the Dursleys and as soon as he could get away from them, he was going to and he wouldn’t ever be going back. He was stuck with them for now, until he worked out what he needed to do to get the hell away from them for good, but he’d had enough, more than enough, and he was not going to be their little slave or their punching bag any more. He was done. He needed to find a way to get away from them forever, once and for all, no matter how long it took him or what he had to do in order to do so.

 

“Please check that all present information is correct.” Slinope told him, handing over a sheaf of parchment.

 

Harry read slowly and carefully, noting his first and last name, though he frowned at the two middle names, he hadn’t known that his middle name had been James until he’d gone to Hogwarts, but no one had told that he had two middle names, he’d had no idea that his own middle name was actually John James. He brushed it aside and noted his date of birth, current age, place of birth and parentage…it was the latter that made him pause again as there were four names that were listed, not just the two that he’d been expecting.

 

“I…Slinope, this says that Lily and James Potter are my parents, but not genetically. What does that mean? Who are these other people and why are they listed as my parents? I don’t know either of them.”

 

Slinope took the parchment back, looked over it and then went searching in one of the many folders on the desk.

 

“The Healers of Saint Mungos record that Lily Evans was unable to produce an adequate egg for fertilisation and thus had to use donor eggs and another set of Healers, confirmed with an Auror report, both confirm that James Potter was rendered infertile at the age of twenty by a curse in the line of duty as an Auror, he would have to use donor sperm if he wanted a child. A document from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement made a notation that James and Lily Potter, now married, searched for many years for two people who looked similar to them and they came across a couple in America who were willing to help. A John and Mary Winchester. They were Muggles so the Potters needed permission to approach them, which was granted.”

 

“If they were Muggles, then how am I a wizard?” Harry demanded. He didn’t want to believe this, it couldn’t be true! Why hadn’t anyone ever mentioned it to him before if it was true?!

 

“The fertilised donor egg was implanted into your Mother’s womb. It was only her eggs that were defective, not her womb, thus the seven months that you spent in her womb nurtured you with magic and altered you very slightly, but just enough for you to have magic of your own.”

 

“So…so my Mum still birthed me?” He asked.

 

“She did, on the thirty-first of July, nineteen-ninety-one.”

 

Harry nodded and twisted his scabbed and grazed fingers together hard. This…this was a culture shock, but something was pounding around at his mind. A burning question that needed to be asked. A potential way out for him in regards to the Dursleys.

 

“My…my genetic donors, are they still alive?” He asked, not even sure if he had any right to call them that or to ask after them, for all he knew they’d signed away all rights to him and they never wanted to see him, ever.

 

“John Winchester is still alive. Mary Winchester died before you were even born, in nineteen eighty-three.”

 

“How did she give an egg if she died eight years before I was born?” Harry demanded furiously.

 

Slinope glared at him and Harry cowed, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head.

 

“She gave her egg, her Husband gave his sperm and the samples were kept carefully preserved until a time that your parents chose to use them.” Slinope told him sharply. “A note from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement explains that they chose to wait several years while they explored all avenues of natural conception with specialist Healers and possible reversals of the curse that rendered James Potter infertile before they realised that there was nothing that could be done and they used the samples they had been given to finally have you.”

 

“Did…did my genetic donors sign away their rights to me?” He asked, unsure what else to call them at this point. What else was he supposed to call them, his other parents? Maybe his biological parents, but then they’d never technically been parents to him, they’d never even laid eyes on him as far as he knew, or at least he knew that Mary Winchester never had, as she’d died eight years before he’d been born. As clinical and distant as it seemed, they were just genetic donors to him and they probably thought the same thing about him, just a genetic baby, nothing to do with them. That was if they even thought of him at all.

 

Slinope went digging in the folders again before pulling out an official looking certificate.

 

“No. In the event of your parents’ deaths, they actually agreed to take you in and adopt you as their own.”

 

Harry’s heart clenched and his eyes teared up. He could have been with the person who had given his sperm just so that he could live and who had actually agreed to take him in. Why the hell had he been sent to the Dursleys when they hated him if he had someone who was not only related to him, but who was technically his biological Father? He wasn’t even genetically related to the Dursleys! Yet Dumbledore had still insisted that he be with his blood relatives when he would have _known_ that he shared absolutely no blood with the Dursleys!

 

“Why was I given to the Dursleys?” Harry asked softly.

 

Slinope went searching through the folders again and Harry just managed to catch a glimpse of the header and caught the words Magical Law Enforcement before Slinope started talking again.

 

“The Department of Magical Law Enforcement searched your house for you, but you were nowhere to be found. Albus Dumbledore insisted that you were safe with familial relatives. The Head of the Department at that time was satisfied that this meant that you were being adequately cared for and that you were with your biological Father in America as per your parents’ wishes.”

 

Harry’s face fell into despair. He was supposed to be with his biological Father in America? Everyone thought that that was where he was when instead he was with the Dursleys who beat and starved him?

 

“Where can I find him?” He asked almost desperately.

 

“We have an address listed in Lawrence, Kansas for him. Here.”

 

Harry accepted the address with quaking hands and he swallowed. “Can I go to my vault now?”

 

“I believe that this concludes all of our current business. If you’d like only the one vault, we can transfer all existing vaults to just the main Potter vault.”

 

Harry frowned. “Okay.” He agreed, not really understanding.

 

Slinope nodded and pulled a piece of parchment out of the pile and signed it before having Harry sign it and then she sent it off.

 

“Now, let us go down to your vault, if you’ll hand over your old key, it no longer matches your vault.”

 

Harry dug out the tiny golden key and handed it over before he picked his trunk up from the floor and followed Slinope back through the winding stone corridor. The walk back through the bank seemed to take less time, Harry didn’t know if it was because it was a shorter route, or if it seemed shorter because his mind was chasing his chaotic thoughts at a mile a minute instead of focusing on how much pain he was in.

They came out of the corridor into the stone caves and the familiar little cart on the track that Harry remembered from all of his other trips to Gringotts. Harry climbed into the little cart, stashing his trunk beside him and he smiled for the first time as they sped at breakneck speed down to the location of his new vault, which was much larger than his old vault.

Slinope waited outside in the corridor for privacy’s sake as Harry hefted his trunk into the new, massive vault to look around at all of the things that he apparently owned. He’d never seen or known about the majority of it. The only vault he’d known about had only contained Galleons. This vault contained not just a mountainous mass of golden coins, but also books, jewellery and most strangely, a knife in an ancient looking, age cracked sheath. Harry looked at it curiously, he played it over in his hands and he squeezed the hilt tightly. He had to have it, it was his after all, it belonged to him and it needed to stay with him. He needed it.

He took his school backpack out of his trunk and he slipped the knife into it along with a large fistful of Galleons. He perused the books, but skipped over most of them as they didn’t catch his interest. The majority of them were books for household maintenance or cooking with magic. He only took a few of the books and he put them into his backpack too, thankful that Hermione had charmed it for him last year as ‘practice’ as it was now twice as large on the inside as it looked from the outside. It was not technically legal, as such extension spells were illegal to cast for personal use without express permission from the Ministry, but it was a very difficult law to enforce as his backpack looked no different on the outside, if someone looked inside it and saw the charm however, he would be in a lot of trouble, as he would never sell out Hermione as the caster of the charm.

The books he’d chosen to take with him seemed interesting enough and some of the spell books might come in handy if he could learn from them, but all the others he discarded. He opened his trunk and emptied it of everything he wanted to take with him and put them into his backpack before leaving the heavy, bulky trunk in his vault. The backpack would be easier to carry around, even if it was heavy.

He jumped over the rest of the books, at least until he found a book with his name on it. He opened it up and on the inside cover were several variations of his name, including Henry, Harold, Hariel, and finally just plain Harry. There were middle names as well which had apparently gone from Charlus, to John, Henry, James and then finally John and James. His last name had always been down as Potter, but there was an elegant note that if Lily and James were to die, then ‘baby boy’ Potter could claim the name Winchester if he so wished when he went to live with his biological parents.

His name really wasn’t Harry James Potter, it was Harry John James Potter and that could change to Winchester as well if he chose to claim his biological Father’s name. He swallowed and turned the page. It was basically a diary of how he had come to be alive. It was all true, it was really true. It wasn’t some elaborate prank set up by the goblins or a Ministry blunder on the paperwork. His parents had written this diary, explaining everything and he really had been a surrogate baby.

He read through the first few pages and it seemed absolutely amazing that he’d been born at all as he read how far and wide his parents had searched for people who had looked like themselves. He took the diary with him too, placing it carefully, almost reverently, into his backpack, almost not wanting to let it out of his sight. He wanted to read, and then re-read, every single page that had been handwritten by both of his parents. It was the only thing he had that had been both of theirs. He had the cloak from his Dad, the Marauders Map that had been his Dad’s, but nothing from his Mother, until now. A deep, previously unknown wound ached to hold on to that physical connection to his Mother. The very first thing he had that she had touched, the need to study the words she’d written with her own hand, to study her handwriting, just to get some sort of connection to her.

 

“Can I convert some Galleons to British Pounds and American Dollars?” Harry asked Slinope quietly as he came out of the vault closing his backpack on the book with the promise that he’d look at it again as soon as he could. He already had an idea already in his head that he was going to go to America to try and find John Winchester. Anything was better than being forced back to the Dursleys.

 

“For a conversion fee, of course.”

 

“I need a passport too, where do I go to do that?”

 

“You can have that done here as well if you wish, some witches and wizards feel more comfortable having the Ministry handling it, however.”

 

“If it’s okay, I’d like it to be handled by Gringotts.”

 

Slinope nodded curtly.

 

Harry nodded back and he started planning to get several things that he’d need to go to America. This needed to be planned with precision and it needed to be done quickly. All it took was for someone to see him and question why he was here alone and then either the Ministry or Dumbledore would take him back to the Dursleys and after the way that he’d left earlier that day, he was not going to get a warm welcome if he went back there this summer. He never wanted to go back to them ever again, they weren’t even related to him.

He hoped that his biological Father accepted him and let him stay, at least for this one summer, even if he didn’t want to take him in permanently or ever want to see him again after this one meeting. He would resort to begging again if he needed to, he just wanted to feel close to someone. He wanted to be close to his parent, even if it was for one measly summer, he could live with that, but he just needed to know that somewhere, there was someone who would care if he died, who would have loved him unconditionally, just for being Harry and no other reason.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Harry left the bank over an hour later with British pounds, American dollars and Galleons. He’d been given his new key, he’d gotten a valid passport that if checked by a witch or wizard would prove him to be magical and he had his own bank card that was linked directly to his vault, just in case he got stranded anywhere with no money.

He’d thanked Slinope for all the help that he’d been given, making sure to emphasise how much he appreciated the help, before he left the bank and he went shopping for things he thought that he might need for his trip.

He bought books that caught his attention, particularly creature books as he was very interested in them. He went digging in every shop he came across to pick up some things and he bought a dragon handled knife with a wickedly jagged blade, like dragon teeth. The shopkeeper didn’t even care that he was selling a knife to an underaged boy, he just sneered at him from down his bulbous nose and greedily accepted his Galleons.

Harry didn’t go back to the Dursley’s. He’d been with them for just a week, this time last week he’d been in Hogwarts still, but already he felt run down and sick…from just a bloody week in the Dursley’s company. He just wanted to get away from them and he clung to the hope that John Winchester actually wanted to meet with him.

He stayed at the Leaky Cauldron instead of going back to Little Whinging after his full day of shopping and he’d told Tom the barkeeper that he was going to go home tomorrow and could he please have a room for the night because he’d spent more time than he’d planned to in Diagon Alley today.

Hedwig was waiting for him when he opened the door to his room for the night and he smiled. He filled her in on everything he’d learnt and he sat on the bed and read some more of the diary, picking up on his parents’ desperation and desire for a child, just the one so that they could share their love. They’d found many people who looked like them, but very few of them were suitable to be donors and even less were actually interested in donating eggs or sperm. There were just four names for women willing to give their eggs and seven men willing to donate sperm. Then Lily had written about a dream that she’d had about a couple willing to help them and how when she’d woken up, she knew just where to look.

 

“How can you just have a dream about where to go?” Harry asked aloud. “Even I think that’s strange, why didn’t they question it, Hedwig?”

 

Hedwig hooted as she settled on his shoulder and picked at the strands of his hair.

 

“I mean, seriously, a dream? She found these Winchesters in a dream and they both thought it was a good idea to just Apparate over to America and go and meet them? What the hell!”

 

Hedwig trilled softly and nibbled his ear gently before going back to sorting out his hair as Harry read on incredulously.

 

His Mother and Father had gone straight to Kansas, America and there they’d found John and Mary with a two year old boy of their own and the young Lily had gushed at how perfect they seemed, just like in her dream. How Mary’s eyes were just like hers, how John had jet black messy hair like James. That they’d even agreed to have contact with the baby born if they decided to use their samples.

His parents, he could tell who was writing what by their handwriting, had agreed to use John and Mary as their donors and the samples had been preserved…for almost an entire decade. It seemed that Mary and John had donated their samples just a year before Mary had died.

His Mother talked endlessly about seeing Mary with the most adorable brown-blond haired little boy named Dean and James talked about watching John helping the same little boy practice something he assumed was a sport called t-ball.

 

“They really loved them, Hed.” Harry said wistfully. “Especially their little son Dean. They became so close to them and they spent months over in America.”

 

His parents had fallen completely in love with the small family and everything had been worked out over the next several months and officially and legally signed and Mary and John had promised to take in the baby born if anything at all had happened to James and Lily and his parents had agreed to take in Dean if anything had happened to John and Mary so that the boys could be raised together as brothers.

It tore at Harry’s heart, even if Mary had died, then surely he could have still been raised by John, with his older brother Dean, who would be around twenty-seven depending on when he was born. It was shocking to realise that the little two, three year old that his parents had met and absolutely adored was now nearly thirty and that when his parents had accepted the samples from John and Mary, he could have been just three years younger than Dean instead of twelve years.

Harry sighed. He did, however, understand his parents’ decision to try and find a way of having a baby naturally, even if it meant that he’d never been born. He didn’t hold that against them. Once his parents had finally come to realise that even magic wouldn’t be able to help with Lily’s defective eggs, they’d moved on to trying to find a counter curse for the one that James had received in the field as an Auror.

They’d been unsuccessful with that too and they had finally turned to the donated samples as a last resort and they detailed every single step of the fertilisation and then the implantation of the several fertilised eggs that had survived thus far into Lily’s womb in the diary. He had been the only fertilised egg to survive to the foetus stage of gestation and he’d flourished throughout his Mum’s seven month pregnancy.

 

“I feel so sorry for them, Hedwig, all they wanted was a baby and they couldn’t have one.” Harry said sadly. “They wanted a baby so badly that they searched for years for a way to have one.”

 

He read on, through the details of every step of the pregnancy and he smiled as he read about how much they loved him, even before he was born. He wished so hard that they were still alive, the one thing in the world that he wanted, above anything else, was a family and now he might just have one, even if it was just a Father and an older brother. It was still more than he had at the moment and much more than he’d ever dreamed of.

There were two contact numbers in the back of the book and Harry stared at them longingly. Tomorrow he needed to buy a mobile phone and a plane ticket…he stopped at that, would he even be allowed to buy a ticket without an adult? He swallowed. Perhaps he could order one online, he’d always been jealous that Dudley had the latest phones and laptops, if he ordered the ticket online, paid for it with his new bank card, then surely they couldn’t reject him after he’d already bought it?

His mind was racing and it was almost five in the morning before he finally fell asleep, where nightmares plagued him and he tossed and turned fitfully before darting awake in the grip of panic at nine in the morning. He couldn’t remember ever sleeping so late before, but then he rarely stayed awake so late, so he understood. It wasn’t like he had his Aunt hammering on his door to start breakfast and there was no threat of Vernon beating him black and blue again, but he needed to get moving, just in case Dumbledore realised that he was missing from the Dursleys and came here to look for him. He couldn’t go back now that he knew the truth. He couldn’t go back now that he knew that he wasn’t even blood related to the Dursleys.

He looked at the sickly bruises as he changed and his temper flared. He hated that Vernon beat him as he saw fit, that Petunia treated him as slave and a moving target to swing a frying pan at or for her to slap and claw at with her manicured false nails and that Dudley, who was eleven years older than him, was allowed to do as he pleased to him. Most of the little cuts he had were from Dudley pushing him through a thorn bush and onto a patch of gravel. He hated all three of them, he hoped that his Father and brother were better than the Dursleys, that they treated him better, he begged that they were. He didn’t know what he’d do if they were the same or somehow even worse than the Dursleys.

He dressed carefully, layering up to hide as many of his bruises as he could, covering up his arms completely with one of his numerous long sleeved jumpers that had been Dudley’s about two decades ago. He had sent Hedwig off already with a furiously quilled letter to Sirius, he wanted to know why he’d never been told about the Winchesters when Sirius was his Father’s best friend. He’d never even been told his own name! He felt that Sirius should have told him these things.

He took his stuff and he made sure that he had everything from the room before he slung his backpack over his good shoulder and he made his way down the rickety stairs and out into the bar area.

 

“Mister Potter, do you want some breakfast?” Tom asked eagerly as soon as he saw him, alerting everyone within hearing distance, which was actually quite a few people, to his presence as they all snapped their necks to turn to stare at him.

 

“No.” Harry shook his head. “I’m fine, thanks. I need to get going.”

 

“Are you certain?” Tom asked, sounding a bit disappointed.

 

Harry nodded. “Yes thanks, I hadn’t meant to stay overnight. I’ll be fine for a few hours until I get back.”

 

How could anyone expect him to eat breakfast with half the pub staring at him, watching his every move as he tried to eat some breakfast? No, he couldn’t, he’d likely choke, so he rushed back out into the Muggle world as quickly as he could and he set about finding a technology shop. It wasn’t that difficult as he was in London. He did get some strange looks for being as young as he was, and likely because he was wearing what amounted to rags and a very overlarge, baggy jumper in the middle of summer, and he was very aware that he looked younger than he actually was due to his short height, but he made do as best as he could as he asked politely for help in picking out what he needed.

He managed to buy a laptop and a phone by exclaiming happily, and loudly, that his parents had given him money for his birthday so that he could buy the laptop and phone that he wanted. He just about managed to trick the staff at the shop into getting what he wanted.

He carried his new purchases to, near enough next door, into a café and he sat down at the counter bar to set up the laptop, reading the instructions and finding it all really simple and straight forward. He had it all sorted in half an hour as he sipped on his tea.

He’d connected to the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi with the help of the older teenager behind the counter, who was very happy to help him and top up his tea for him free of charge. Harry managed to navigate the pages by himself and he bought a ticket to Kansas City, the closest airport that he could get to Lawrence, and all he had to do was pick it up just before he boarded the plane, which left in four hours including the hour it would take him to get a taxi from Charing Cross road to Heathrow airport. He’d bought the ticket under the name of Lily Winchester with his new bank card. If anyone looked, they wouldn’t recognise the name or link it to him. He was planning on confunding the airport staff, just a little, to make them think that his passport matched the name on his ticket. He was glad that Hermione had done so much extra work for Charms and that he’d paid attention to her when she did do all of that extra work as well as using him and Ron for practice.

He used his new phone to call the numbers in the back of the book. The first was a bust, the number was disconnected, but with the second number he got a voicemail and he heard his Father’s voice for the first time. It was really rough and gruff and Harry wondered if perhaps this was a mistake.

John had given another number in the recording, one for his brother Dean, but it said to only call him if it was an emergency. Harry doubted that this could be classed as an emergency. Harry dialled his Father’s number again and wrote the other number down regardless, just in case.

He was quivering as he climbed into a taxi and started the hour long journey to the airport. He was overall very glad that he’d gone a bit earlier as it took ages for the taxi to navigate the traffic, but he did arrive in time to collect his ticket, which he said was in his Mother’s name when the worker questioned the female name, but a quick, subtle wave of his wand by his hip confused the woman into nodding as if Harry’s explanation was valid before she handed over the ticket and wished him a safe flight.

He managed to get through all the security checkpoints with no problems thanks to some more subtly cast spells, seeing as he wasn’t entirely sure what the scanners would show if he put his magically enlarged backpack through it, especially as he was carrying two knives with him.

The first thing he did on the other side of the security check points was buy several bottles of water for his flight before he made his way over to board the plane, the stewardess looked at him strangely and Harry’s guts clenched. He couldn’t have her suspicious just in case she took him off the plane, questioned him or worse, brought the attention of the police to him, so he started rambling nervously.

 

“I’m so nervous, this is my first time on a plane. Mum just dropped me off, I’m going to see my Dad for the first time in ages, he lives in America now. Is…is flying really so bad?”

 

The soft smile the stewardess gave him then had Harry congratulating himself on his lie. The woman had been concerned about him being on his own while being so young.

 

“It’ll be alright, sweetie, I promise. Let me show you to your seat and get you strapped in.” She didn’t even check the name on the ticket, just the seat number as she led him further down the plane and got him settled.

 

Harry thanked her and once he was settled down and strapped in he dug in his backpack for a book to read to take his mind off of his fear. He liked flying, but this…being in what equated to a metal box, was definitely a far cry from being on a broom. The highest he had ever flown before was a few hundred feet, the aeroplane was going to go up to thirty-five thousand and it didn’t help that he was going to another country, he had no idea where he was going or how he’d be received when he got there or even if his biological Father even wanted him. He was so far out of his comfort zone right now that he couldn’t even feel it anymore.

His book worked to take his mind off of everything, he’d always been interested in magical creatures of all kinds, though perhaps not Hagrid’s idea of them, but when he’d seen the books on American specific creatures in Flourish and Blotts, he’d decided to get several of them to see if there were any differences. There were so many that Harry became utterly absorbed in his book as he made notes in the dragonhide notebook that he’d also bought in Diagon Alley from Scribbulus Writing Implements.

It seemed that most of the creatures in America were violent and bloodthirsty, the book theorised that it was because of the unstable, ambient magic of America, they even had a form of Dementor that fed mostly from children! The book went on to describe Muggle witches who sold their souls to get magic and then used that magic for personal gain or even to kill other people. Harry was completely horrified by it all. Even the werewolves were different in America and the wolfsbane potion apparently had no effect on them. Again the book theorised that it was because they were Muggle werewolves, not magical and so the potion didn’t work.

The twelve hour flight was over in a flash for Harry as he read through the creature books he’d bought, stopping only to decline the offer of food from a stewardess as he barely forced his gaze away from the book long enough to take in what she was asking him. He didn’t want food at the moment anyway, his stomach was still in knots over what he was doing and he just wanted to read to take his mind off of what would happen when he finally landed.

The books were completely amazing, though! He could definitely understand Hermione’s love for books, but his topic spectrum was definitely much smaller than hers, he only had a few subjects that he actually had an interest in where Hermione would read anything and everything if it was written down for her.

Harry stepped off of the plane yawning, he hadn’t slept once during the twelve hour flight and he had been awake since he’d woken up at nine in the morning. Though it was strange to have gotten on a plane at four in the afternoon, had a twelve hour flight and then, when he’d gotten off the plane, it was ten at night.

Harry, pumped up on adrenaline and the excitement of finding himself in America, so close to his blood family, took a taxi all the way to Lawrence, but, fortunately, by the time that he made it there, his adrenaline had worn off and he was so tired that he could barely walk in a straight line.

He booked himself into the nearest hotel that he could find and he could barely keep his eyes open when he saw the clean, white linen bed. He couldn’t do anything at the moment with it being so late anyway.

He showered quickly and dabbed at the livid bruises and the scabbed over cuts he had before he dressed in his pyjamas and climbed under the soft covers. He was nervous about tomorrow, but he had come all this way, he wasn’t going to back out now. Not when he was so close.

He was so exhausted that he fell asleep quickly, he hoped that Hedwig, who’d taken a furiously written letter to Sirius before he’d left The Leaky Cauldron, would be back with a reply soon. He wanted to know why he had never been told about the Winchesters, about his own parentage or even about his own name. In his mind, there was no excuse for not telling him that he had been a surrogate baby and that he had a living Father and brother in America. No excuse at all.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Dean Winchester watched closely as his brother’s face pulled into a frown as he listened to someone talk on his cell. They’d just been packing up their stuff from the latest motel they’d been staying in, having finished up their latest hunt, when Jenny, a woman who they’d saved from a poltergeist that had been inhabiting their old home in Lawrence, had called Sam.

 

“What is it, another poltergeist?” Dean asked impatiently when Sam finally said goodbye and flipped the phone shut.

 

“No…I, Jenny said that a kid came around asking after Dad. He’d been given our old address and he went looking for Dad there.”

 

“What? How old was he?” Dean demanded as he stopped stuffing his clothes haphazardly into his duffel to stare at Sam.

 

“Jenny didn’t ask, but said he looked about twelve, maybe thirteen. He was on his own.”

 

“What are you thinking, demon maybe?” Dean suggested.

 

“Maybe, but wouldn’t a demon know that we weren’t in that house anymore? We haven’t been there in twenty-three years, Dean. Why would a kid be looking for Dad?”

 

“Hell, I don’t know, Sammy. Maybe he saved the kid or his family or something.”

 

“Jenny gave him your number.”

 

“Mine, why didn’t she give him yours?”

 

“Because he knew that you were John’s son, but he didn’t know about me.” Sam answered with a wry smile. “Jenny said he seemed confused when she mentioned that I was your brother.”

 

“Now that’s just strange.”

 

“Do you think we should call Dad?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, let me call him.” Dean answered as he opened his own cell and dialled John Winchester. Their Dad was better at answering his phone, at least to the two of them, after their almost fatal crash last year when Dean had very nearly died.

 

“What is it, Dean?” The gruff, tired voice of John Winchester answered after the fourth ring.

 

“Nothing much, Dad, it’s just Sammy got a call from one of the people we helped last year, the one who is living in our old house. A kid went there today, asking for you.”

 

“Name?”

 

Dean looked to Sam. “Did Jenny give you a name?”

 

“Harry.” Sam answered with a nod.

 

“Harry.” Dean repeated. “Is he the kid of someone you helped before or…?”

 

“It doesn’t ring a bell. It could be a demon.”

 

“I thought the same, but Sammy said that the demons would know that we aren’t living there anymore.”

 

“They could be trying to draw us out. Are you on a hunt?”

 

“No, we just finished one.”

 

“Get to Bobby’s. I’ll meet you there.”

 

John hung up and Dean shut off his phone and sighed. “Finish packing up, Sammy. We’re meeting Dad at Bobby’s.”

 

“Does he know who it might be?”

 

“No, but he’s thinking it’s a demon trying to draw us out.”

 

Sam nodded as he packed up his stuff and shut down his laptop. Dean sighed again and did the same, he’d really had enough of demons.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

A/N: Hi, lovelies. This is my newest fic, I know I have far too many of them currently, but I hope to finish off two of them very soon so I’ve decided to add a new fic and this is the one that won out in the end over the new Avengers crossover.

This fic currently has several chapters already written, but I have several other fics I need to write for and update too and very limited time in which to do it in, so don’t expect too much from me, but I will do what I can.

But I’d love to hear from you all, about what you think of the first chapter of this new crossover. Please let me know and put me out of my misery please, lovelies!

 

StarLight Massacre. X


	2. Introduction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I’ve been made aware of some confusion over the timeline and the ages of the characters, so I’d like to take a moment to clarify that here first. This fic takes place in June of 2006. Harry was born in 1991 and he is 14, he will be 15 on July 31st.  
> I have not changed any of the timelines. They’re the same. Dean was born in January 1979 – He’s 27. Sam was born in May 1983 – he’s 23. Dudley was still born in June 1980, as in canon, he is 25. The age difference comes from James and Lily being unable to conceive a baby naturally in 1979, so Harry couldn’t possibly have been born in 1980, like in canon. They searched for years for a way to have a baby and eventually found the Winchesters in 1981, who donated to them, but they wanted to make sure that they’d covered all avenues first, so they held off for another several years while working with Healers to try and conceive naturally, they were unsuccessful and in 1990, they went through the fertilisation and implantation of the donor samples into Lily and finally they had Harry in July 1991. That is where the age difference comes from, all the timelines are the same, but for convenience, I have kept the magical timeline in line with Harry himself as I didn’t want to waste the time inventing new friends and school mates for him. So Harry is still in school with Ron and Hermione and Draco etc, it’s just Sirius, Remus, Snape etc are older than in canon.  
> Voldemort’s first war lasted longer than in canon because Harry and Neville were born in 1991, so the prophecy came around in 1990, not 1979. All of Harry’s Hogwarts years were exactly the same as in canon, except Harry kept a few items he wasn’t supposed to. At the start of this fic, Harry had just seen Voldemort’s rebirth in the graveyard and Cedric Diggory’s murder after the events of the Tri-wizard tournament. Does this make more sense now, lovelies? If not, send me a message and I’ll try and explain in more detail.
> 
> Chapter Warning: There might be some triggers in this chapter for those readers of a sensitive nature. Please proceed with caution, lovelies.
> 
> Last Time
> 
> John hung up and Dean shut off his phone and sighed. “Finish packing up, Sammy. We’re meeting Dad at Bobby’s.”
> 
> “Does he know who it might be?” 
> 
> “No, but he’s thinking it’s a demon trying to draw us out.”
> 
> Sam nodded as he packed up his stuff and shut down his laptop. Dean sighed again and did the same, he’d really had enough of demons.

Chapter Two – Introduction.

 

Harry was so disappointed the next day as he’d gotten a taxi to the address that the goblins had given to him only to find out that the Winchesters had moved out the very same night that Mary had died over two decades ago.  

The house had apparently been burnt down to the ground and John had taken his two sons and left. That had seriously surprised him, but according to the lovely lady he’d met, Jenny, he had two older brothers, Dean and Sam. Harry reasoned it out in his head that Sam must have been born after his parents had met with John and Mary to get the samples from them, so his parents hadn’t known about him, as there was no way they wouldn’t have mentioned him in the diary otherwise.

The woman had no idea where the brothers, or their Father, would be, but she offered to give him Dean’s number after she noticed how confused he was after hearing Sam’s name. Harry had agreed just to make sure that it matched up with the one that John had left in his voicemail, it did.

Harry was back to square one and he seriously contemplated calling Dean, but he wasn’t sure if John had ever told his son about being a donor, it was all going to be very awkward. He decided to do some more digging first, maybe there was a forwarding address for mail that would give him a clue as to where John had gone to. If all else failed, then he would call Dean, but until then he was going to do everything he possibly could first. Calling Dean would be a last resort.

He was now back in his hotel room and he was sat at the desk with his new laptop as he tried to find something, anything at all, but it didn’t help that this was the first time that he’d really used a laptop before. He didn’t really know what he was doing or how to go about implementing the ideas that he did have to look for John and his brothers.

He gave up and decided that he’d best get something to eat, he was frustrated with himself to realise that he hadn’t eaten at all in at least two days having declined his meal on the aeroplane. He’d just been so distracted with finding out that he might have living family members that it had taken over everything else. It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to going hungry at any rate. He’d had a lot of practice with the Dursley’s.

He ordered room service for himself and went back to reading more of his books, using his dragonhide parchment notebook to copy the information he found down in his own hand so that he could try and retain the information that he was learning, he was enjoying this new hobby of his, one that he’d started on the twelve hour plane journey yesterday. He was surprised to realise that Unicorns only lived in Europe and that Dementors were exclusive to Azkaban fortress and were rarely allowed off of the prison island. It was all so fascinating.

He ate the hearty dinner that he’d ordered for himself and then lay on his bed just reading, at least until his laptop beeped and he checked it to see that the search he’d set up had left him with very few leads that he could actually follow. He was so frustrated and disappointed. To come all this way and to have a real family dangled in front of him, so close that he could almost taste it, then to hit so many brick walls on his first day in America was truly heart breaking. He’d really hoped that the address would have led him straight to his family. He’d been awake since the early hours mentally preparing for the meeting, trying to work out what he was going to say to them, how he could explain all that had happened that had led him to their doorstep. He’d been thinking and stressing about it so much that it was a complete let down that the meeting hadn’t happened at all. He hadn’t expected any of this running around. It was going to be difficult enough to broach this subject with John and Dean, and now Sam too he supposed, without hunting them down first.

He checked into a few of the results for John Eric Winchester and only one potential lead popped up that actually seemed legitimate. Harvelle’s Roadhouse in Nebraska, a John Eric Winchester had gotten into a fight with another man, the police had been called and had reported the incident, but no charges had been brought about and both men had walked free the next morning after sobering up a little. Harry checked an online map and was happy to realise that Kansas was the state just below Nebraska and he grinned. It wouldn’t be too hard to get there and it was the natural road to follow, he could always come back to Lawrence if Nebraska was a bust and he could start his search again. But hopefully this John Winchester was the same one that he was looking for and he hoped that his Father was in the Nebraska area around the Roadhouse.

With a plan in mind, he found a bus firm online and he ordered a ticket, but his bus wouldn’t leave until tomorrow, he could spend one more night in his wonderful hotel room until then. He was still waiting on Sirius’ letter and his Godfather had better have had a good excuse for not telling him about his true parentage or even just about his real full name. Harry couldn’t see how Sirius had a good excuse, as he didn’t think that there was one, but he would give Sirius the chance to explain his reasoning first.

He lounged on the bed, reading his books and absorbing the information he was reading while jotting down the information to help him memorise it all. He hoped that Harvelle’s Roadhouse didn’t turn out to be another bust, because it seemed to be a trucker’s stop in the middle of absolutely nowhere, he wouldn’t be able to get to the actual Roadhouse easily and he wouldn’t be able to leave it easily either. He just wanted to stop all of this running around, it was going to be hard enough to get over the awkwardness of intruding on their lives without all of this aggravation on top of it. If they wanted nothing to do with him then it would be much easier for everyone involved if he was in a place where he could make a quick and easy getaway. He couldn’t do that at this Roadhouse as it was in the middle of nowhere.

He stopped for the night on a chapter dedicated to ghosts, which as he’d come to expect, were much more violent and murderous in America than in Europe, before going to sleep. He hoped that tomorrow would yield him more results than today had. If Harvelle’s Roadhouse came to nothing then he was completely out of leads and out of ideas. He’d have to call Dean if the Roadhouse was another bust and just hope that his real live blood brother actually believed him and didn’t think that he was just some stupid kid making a prank call.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

John Winchester was overall glad when he caught sight of the gleaming Impala in front of Bobby’s house. His boys acted as a good buffer to him and Bobby as the two of them clashed heads a hell of a lot when they were left to it. He had a vivid memory of a shotgun being aimed at his head, Bobby half a second from pulling the trigger.

He’d driven a straight twenty-eight hours, all through the night and all day to get here just as it was getting into late afternoon. He’d hit two construction zones and a traffic crash on the I-15 north bound. He was not in the best of tempers because of that, coupled with lack of sleep, a grumbling belly as he’d only stopped once for gas and the mystery of this young kid asking for him at the old Lawrence house.

He parked his truck and knocked tersely on Bobby’s door, tensing on automatic as the shotgun was aimed at his head before a shot glass of holy water was handed over. He knocked it back with the ease of having done so half a million times before and after proving that he wasn’t possessed, he headed inside with a cursory greeting to Bobby.

He smiled at his two boys, he was still taller than Dean, but he didn’t know what had happened to his chubby little Sammy. He was a towering hulk now and as he dragged them both into a rough hug, it was awkward to have Sam lean down so much for a hug, but he managed.

 

“It’s good to see you boys.” He told them sincerely, if a bit gruffly.

 

“So what’s the deal with this Harry kid?” Bobby asked, getting them right down to business.

 

“I honestly don’t know.” John sighed wearily. “On my way here, I’ve been inquiring into all avenues, but without seeing him, I don’t know where he’s come from or why he’s looking for me.”

 

“I called Jenny again while we were waiting for you, she said he had black hair and green eyes.” Sam told him.

 

“Yeah, she said he looked a lot like Sammy.” Dean added with a look and John sighed, thinking about what he was doing eleven, twelve, thirteen years ago. He couldn’t remember being with anyone, or at least no one stood out that he’d had unprotected sex with.

 

“Nothing comes to mind.” He told them as he scrubbed a hand through his hair.

 

“Was it you, Dean?” Bobby asked seriously. “Kid was what, eleven, twelve years old? You’d have been around fifteen at the time.”

 

Dean looked horrified at the very thought. “No!” He denied furiously.

 

“You sure?” John asked him. “You were active at around thirteen, fourteen.”

 

“The hell sort of question is that? Of course I’m sure!” Dean replied shifting his shoulders uncomfortably.

 

“So, is this kid still in Lawrence?” Bobby asked.

 

“Jenny didn’t ask him where he was staying or where he’d come from, only that he was looking for John Winchester. She said he recognised Dean, but was surprised when she mentioned me.” Sam said.

 

“That’s unusual too. The demons all know about the three of you, no way would one know about John and Dean and not you, Sam.” Bobby said thoughtfully.

 

“Everything about this is strange!” Dean said throwing his hands up. “Why us? Why is a twelve year old looking for us, of all the people he could be searching for?”

 

“Is there anything else it could be apart from a demon, Bobby?” John asked. “Something that takes the form of a kid or prefers kids as a host?”

 

Bobby rubbed at his forehead near the edge of his ball cap.

 

“Hell if I know.” He replied. “Acheri are low level demons that take the form of a kid, but they’re more likely to be little girls. Standard demons will take kids as a host, but they prefer not to. A kid walking around on their own is more conspicuous, but if it suits their purpose, they’ll possess a kid easily.”

 

“The same for shape shifters, right?” Dean asked. “They’d be able to take on the form of a child.”

 

“Yeah, but again, a kid is too easily noticed. There’d be no way to know what he is unless we tested him.”

 

“It might just be a kid.” Sam added. “He doesn’t have to be something demonic.”

 

Dean just gave him a look. “Of course it does! When has anyone ever come looking for us to just chat, Sam?”

 

One of Bobby’s phones rang and he went to answer it, leaving John to watch as Dean rambled and paced as Sam just stood there and watched his brother.

 

“You’re too paranoid.” Sam told Dean after Dean mumbled something about ghost stalkers.

 

“I have a right to be!” Dean snapped back. “It’s kept me alive all these years. I have gut instincts, Sammy and right now they’re saying that something just ain’t right about any of this!”

 

“We may have a bigger problem.” Bobby told them when he came back into the room several minutes later. “That was Ellen Harvelle. A twelve year old kid has just turned up at her Roadhouse asking for John Winchester.”

 

“That settles it, it has to be a demon!” Dean said furiously. “How did he know about Ellen’s? To go straight from Lawrence to the Roadhouse, this thing is hunting you, Dad. It might even come here after Ellen’s!”

 

“We’re not going to let it.” John said seriously. “If it wants to meet us so badly, I say we go to it and corner it in at the Roadhouse. We’re going to Ellen’s, now.”

 

Dean nodded decisively and he headed right out to the Impala, Sam hesitated for a moment before following.

 

“Does Ellen think it’s a demon?” John asked Bobby.

 

Bobby removed his ball cap and swiped at his forehead before replacing it back on his head.

 

“She hasn’t had a chance to check, the boy refused a drink, apparently he had a bottle of water with him, but she called as soon as he arrived and she said he looked ‘elated’ when she told him that she could possibly get into contact with you.”

 

John nodded. “Call me if Ellen updates you on him and tell her to stall it. Tell her to keep that thing there until we get there.”

 

“I will, you be careful now, Winchester and you look after those boys.”

 

John nodded again and left Bobby’s to climb back in his truck, it was a six hour drive to Harvelle’s Roadhouse. He really needed some sleep, but this couldn’t wait. He needed to find out what this thing was and why it wanted him, why it was looking for him, of all people.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Harry was exhausted already. He’d gotten up at the crack of dawn, gotten a taxi back to Kansas City and caught his bus to Columbus, Nebraska before catching another bus to North Platte. The first bus journey had taken over five hours, the second (after two hours of standing around, waiting endlessly for the bus that he needed to arrive) had taken four hours.

He’d gotten a small room for the night in North Platte. He was just so tired after spending eleven hours trying to get this far that he just couldn’t face however long it would take him now to get up highway eighty-three to Harvelle’s Roadhouse.

He pulled his newest book out and cracked it open. He’d gotten some serious reading and note taking done on the buses and as soon as he’d gotten to his hotel and got access to Wi-Fi, he’d even started fact checking what the Muggle lore said about them on his laptop. He was getting better at using it and he was quite proud of himself. He’d never used much technology before because the Dursleys had never allowed him near any of theirs, so that he was picking it up so quickly was something that he could be proud of.

He still couldn’t link the benign and friendly ghosts who liked talking about themselves and how they’d died to the bloodthirsty, malevolent ghosts that killed people here in America, but Harry wondered if it was the difference between magical ghosts and Muggle ones, mixed in with the wild magic of America itself. He wanted to find out, someone somewhere must have tested that theory at one point.

He’d learnt about several creatures which were native only to America and some that were over here but had origins in other countries, like Wendigos and Shtrigas, which had been the Dementor like creatures that fed mainly off of children that he’d read about before.

He really loved creatures, but the things in America were seriously bad. They were all insane or homicidal or needed to feed off of other people in order to keep existing. He wondered if the American Ministry of Magic sorted them out, if there actually _was_ an American Ministry of Magic, but he couldn’t see anyone just leaving these things to wander around killing people and children. It wasn’t right.

He got himself into his scratchy bed, it certainly wasn’t as nice as the hotel in Lawrence, but it was still much better than the bed he had at the Dursleys and infinitely better than the cupboard under the stairs.

He woke up at mid-morning again the next day after his late night and he groaned as he realised that he hadn’t properly eaten anything yesterday either. He’d had breakfast before he’d left the hotel, but since then, it had mostly been snacks and bottled water on both of the buses he’d caught.

He climbed out of bed and showered, trying to ignore the painful bruises all over his body and the very painful wound in his shoulder, he patted dry the odd scabs he had, not wanting to remove them lest he start bleeding again. All he needed was for blood to start showing through his clothes.

He’d figured out that the only way he could get to Harvelle’s Roadhouse was to hitch a ride with someone going through that way unless he wanted to start walking and get there some when next week. Both of those options were risky, so he’d moved his wand to the waistband of his too big, too baggy jeans, just in case, but really what were the chances of him picking up a serial killer or something? People hitch hiked all the time and nothing happened to them, what were the chances of something happening to him? Not everyone here was going to be out to hurt him, there were lovely, kind people here too, he was sure.

So he grabbed all his stuff and after choking down some breakfast in a nearby diner, he went off to see if someone would give him a ride up the eighty-three to Harvelle’s Roadhouse. He soon realised though that he was too shy to actually stop any of the hard looking, tattooed men in the nearby petrol station, let alone ask them for a lift and before he knew it, several hours had passed and he was still in North Platte.

 

“You alright, boy? I don’t like loiterers near my truck.” One massive man said and Harry realised too late that he’d been standing near the one truck for more than ten minutes. The man must have been watching him from the diner window.

 

“I…I’m fine.” Harry managed to choke out.

 

“Yeah? Then get the fuck away from my truck!”

 

Harry scarpered and he almost ran into another man as he looked over his shoulder to the bad tempered man he was running away from.

 

“Easy there, are you alright? That jackass didn’t scare you, did he? I can kick his ass for you if you want.”

 

“No, no that’s okay.” Harry said, feeling out of his depth.

 

“You a runaway?” The man asked with a hint of something in his voice as he eyed up his ragged clothing and his backpack.

 

“No. I’m trying to get to Harvelle’s Roadhouse, it’s just up highway eighty-three.”

 

“I can give you a ride if you want, I’m passing up that way.”

 

“Really?” Harry asked excitedly.

 

“Sure, hop in.”

 

The man indicated a large truck and Harry started going to the wrong side of the truck before remembering that he was in America. The driver chuckled at him and Harry blushed before climbing into the right side of the truck, or rather the wrong side for him. It had been a long couple of days.

 

“I take it you aren’t from America, that accent and trying to get in the driver’s side all point to somewhere in Europe.” The man stated as he started the truck and pulled away from the diner slash petrol station, finally getting Harry on track to the Roadhouse just north of North Platte.

 

Harry nodded. “London.” He said as he looked at his hands.

 

“Hmm, British, eh? What are you doing so far from home?”

 

Harry didn’t really know what to say as the man hammered home that he didn’t really know what the hell he was doing here in America. It was all a gamble based on finding John Winchester and an even bigger gamble that the man wanted anything to do with him. Though he and his Wife had signed that agreement with his parents, but seriously, that had been almost twenty-four years ago, longer than he’d actually been alive even, and John’s Wife Mary had died since then. What if John didn’t even remember donating or knew nothing about him being born? It had been two and a half decades since then and a lot could happen in that time. It all seemed so pointless and foolish now that he thought about it.

 

“Alright, don’t answer. You can have your secrets, but why do you want to go to some rundown Roadhouse in the middle of Nebraska?”

 

“I want answers.” Harry said softly.

 

The man nodded as if this was acceptable before he took his eyes from the road for a moment to look at him. “I’m Paul.”

 

“Harry.” He said automatically before wondering, too late, if maybe he should have used a fake name.

 

“How old are you, Harry? About eleven, twelve?”

 

“Fourteen.” He answered, a little aggrieved at being thought of as so young.

 

The man next to him definitely looked displeased and even irritated at that as he shifted agitatedly at his answer. Harry couldn’t help but wonder why and he shifted a little further over towards the door of the truck, holding his backpack on his lap tightly. His injured shoulder throbbed with the movement. Was the man planning to kill him and was put out because he was older than he looked and might know how to defend himself better than a younger kid?

He swallowed and watched the road obsessively as the time passed to make sure that Paul was going in the right direction. He didn’t like this, perhaps he should have taken a taxi after all, but then all of the cab firms that he’d called had declined to take him, despite the fact that he had the money. Perhaps if he’d offered them double or the money upfront? But it was too late now, he just had to trust that Paul would take him to the Roadhouse.

He relaxed a little when he saw a wooden sign and realised they were about a mile away from the Roadhouse, at least until Paul pulled into a copse of trees and stopped the truck.

 

“Is this as far as you’re taking me?” Harry asked, trying to hide how scared and nervous he was.

 

“You are so sweet and naïve it’s unbearable.” Paul whispered. “I’ve been hard since I got you in my truck.”

 

Harry frowned. “Hard?” He asked confusedly.

 

Paul grinned so widely that Harry huddled against the truck door that wouldn’t open.

 

“Fourteen and still so innocent. It makes my blood pulse. It almost makes up for the fact that you’re already a teenager.”

 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

 

“I know you don’t.” Paul said as he slid closer to him.

 

“Please, just let me go to the Roadhouse.”

 

Paul, if that was _his_ real name, ignored him and just stared at him with his mouth open. He looked like Ripper, Marge’s favourite bull dog, in the summer when it was too hot and he was overheating.

 

“Your eyes are very beautiful. So unique. I’ve never seen any eyes like yours before and I want you.”

 

Harry bit his lip. He didn’t really understand what was going on, but he didn’t like it, at all.

 

“Please.”

 

“Stop talking now.” Paul said sternly and leapt at him suddenly, Harry tried to fight him off but Paul got a roll of duct tape out of the glove compartment and tore a strip off, slapping it over his mouth as he pinned his hips down with one of his huge legs and gripped both of his wrists in one hand with a tight, bruising grip.

 

Harry panicked then as Paul pawed at his jeans. He wriggled and kicked out as the button was broken off of his old, torn jeans that were Dudley’s about sixteen years ago. Thankfully the teeth of the fly caught as Paul tore at it and it jammed as Paul cursed and ripped at his jeans furiously.

Harry kicked out and got a hand free and into his waistband and he clutched at his wand like a lifeline, he fired off a stunner in pure desperation, sending a suddenly unconscious Paul crashing back into the other side of the cab, opposite the door that Harry was previously squashed against.

He was panicking as he turned the key still in the ignition and he all but ripped open the truck door when the lock clicked, he grabbed his bag, jumped out and he ran. He looked back over his shoulder, holding onto his oversized jeans so they didn’t fall off of him, making sure that Paul wasn’t following him. He didn’t have a hand free to tear off the tape.

He didn’t know how long a stunner would last when he hadn’t said the incantation, he needed to get as far away as possible before the stunner wore off and Paul came after him, though he was just infinitely grateful that it had actually worked in the first place. If it had failed he probably would have jammed Paul in the eye with his wand instead and he didn’t know if that would have distracted him enough for him to turn the key and escape the truck. Knowing his luck it would have enraged Paul more and Harry would have ended up being beaten to a pulp and dumped in a ditch somewhere.

He heard an engine rev behind him and he felt tears threaten to fall as his heart lurched with panic before he saw a massive wooden building loom out of the cover of the trees that had been blocking it from his sight. A building that he knew to be the Roadhouse. He stopped for a moment to rip the tape off of his mouth, he felt like it had taken half the skin off of his lips with it and his face smarted, but he didn’t want to stay outside for too long as he pushed open the door to the Roadhouse and hurried inside, still holding onto his broken jeans.

He went up to the central counter which was a wooden square in the middle of the massive, barn like room. There was a pretty, but older woman behind it and she seemed concerned to see him.

 

“Are you alright, sweetie?” She asked.

 

Harry tried to stop his bottom lip from wobbling as he just nodded.

 

“Do you need a drink?”

 

“No, I have a bottle of water, thank you.” Harry said in a rather fragile voice.

 

“Do you need a place to stay? I’ve got a room out back.”

 

Harry just nodded his head and dug in his bag and put a bunch of notes onto the counter as he sniffed.

 

“Sweetie, are you sure you’re alright?”

 

Harry nodded again.

 

“Why are you here?”

 

“I’m…I’m looking for someone.” Harry said as he tried to control himself.

 

The door opened and he spun around quickly to check who it was, fearing that it might be Paul. It wasn’t and he tried to calm himself down, panting to regulate his breathing and heart rate.

 

“It’s alright, sweetie, ain’t nobody going to hurt you in here. I’m Ellen.”

 

“Harry.” He said as he turned back to face the woman, Ellen.

 

“Who are you looking for, Harry?”

 

“I…John, John Winchester.”

 

“Hmm…sure, I might be able to get a hold of him for you.”

 

“Really?” Harry asked, his entire stance changing as he looked up at Ellen hopefully.

 

“Sure, now take a seat and I’ll get you something to eat, take this money back too, I don’t want it.”

 

Harry’s face fell and he pushed the neat wad of money back at Ellen. “Please, I want you to have it for helping me.”

 

“This is too much for a bare room out back and I might not be able to track down Winchester.”

 

“I don’t care, that you’re willing to try means everything to me.”

 

Ellen sighed and nodded before indicating a booth along the wall. The Roadhouse wasn’t very packed, as expected really for the middle of nowhere, but Harry took the large booth table as Ellen had indicated and he opened his bag to pull out his laptop.

He became so absorbed that when a bowl of soup was placed in front of him, he startled a little and he flinched back.

 

“Alright, honey. I can see that something’s happened, now why don’t you tell me why you have a red rectangle over your mouth that’s caused your lips to bleed and why your jeans are broken.”

 

Harry stubbornly rolled his lip under and avoided eye contact. Ellen was telling the truth at least, he tasted blood, a lot of it. The duct tape must have ripped off the scab from where Petunia had kicked his chin as well as causing new splits.

 

Ellen sighed. “Listen kid, I want to help you, but first you need to tell me what happened and get some of this soup down you.”

 

Harry picked up the spoon and dipped it into the white, creamy soup before putting it into his mouth and swallowing. Just the normal act of eating helped to calm his racing heart and his panicked thoughts.

 

“Did someone hurt you?” Ellen asked with a touch more gentleness to her voice.

 

Harry flinched so hard he dropped the spoon and wrapped his arms around himself. He shook his head silently, even though it was a complete lie.

 

“Well I know that’s not the truth.” Ellen said sternly.

 

“I…I hitched a ride from North Platte.” Harry said, hunching his shoulders and rolling them forward to feel a measure of protection.

 

“The driver raped you.”

 

Harry blinked and frowned. He shook his head, but he didn’t know if what Paul had done to him was rape or not.

 

“It’s alright, Harry. You don’t have to hide anything from me, I reckon I already know what’s happened. If he comes in here, you let me know right away and he’ll be going straight back out that door or he’ll meet the wrong end of my shotgun.”

 

That coaxed a small smile from him as he tried to get a hold of himself.

 

“Now, why are you looking for John Winchester?”

 

“I need to speak to him, that’s all. I found that his name was linked to your Roadhouse through a police report, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try here.” Harry told her quietly as he went back to his soup. He didn’t really want to eat anything, but the familiar motions calmed him down and started to settle him, so he repeated them.

 

“He ain’t the friendliest of people, I’ll tell you that.”

 

Harry bit his already abused, bleeding lip and took a deep breath. He looked at the door to the Roadhouse and wondered if he could call a cab to come and get him. He’d offer them triple up front just to get him back to somewhere that wasn’t the middle of nowhere.

 

“Then maybe this was a mistake.” He said under his breath. Ellen heard him regardless.

 

“He won’t dare hurt you. Besides if he tried he’d be meeting the wrong end of my shotgun too. But he’s a blunt, abrasive man. He has been as long as I’ve known him and he won’t change, the stubborn mule.”

 

Harry swallowed as he thought of Uncle Vernon and his hand went to touch the worst of his bruising at his ribs.

 

“Just sleep on it, Harry, it’s getting late. It won’t hurt to stay here for one night, then if you still want to leave, I’ll drop you off in North Platte myself.”

 

“You will? Thank you so much, Mrs Ellen!”

 

“Stay here, eat your soup, then let me know when you’re tired and I’ll take you to your room. Ignore any patrons that bother you, they’re mostly grumpy old men and harmless drunks. But any of them you don’t like, let me know.”

 

Harry nodded, much happier and he went back to his laptop as Ellen went back behind the bar. Harry never noticed her watching him, studying him as he unconsciously curled an arm around the bowl of lightly salted, holy water laced soup that he was eating with a silver spoon.

Ellen noticed everything however, she noticed the exhausted and gaunt, underfed appearance, the too thin, bony hands, the red rectangle over his mouth and cheeks that had to have been from duct tape, the broken fly on the too large jeans, the pain and hurt hidden behind expressive eyes and as Harry bent to pull a book out of his backpack, she noticed the blackish-purple bruising on his hip and back when his shirt rode up.

She continued to watch Harry all afternoon and into the evening until he packed all his things up with a yawn and she knew what was coming before Harry stood up and came to her to ask shyly and politely where he’d be staying. He was far too shy and far too polite for her liking. It wasn’t natural.

Harry thanked Ellen profusely for the small, bare room and once she was gone, he shifted a chair to press up against the door, hoping that at least if it didn’t keep anyone, or anything, from entering, then it would at least give him enough time to wake up and react. He kept his wand within reach, under his pillow.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

John walked into Harvelle’s Roadhouse a little apprehensively with Sam and Dean and he wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting, but there was no twelve year old kid sitting at any of the tables, a cursory sweep told him that much.

 

“You won’t find him, Winchester. It’s late, he’s sleeping.” Ellen told him.

 

“Did you test him?” He asked quietly as he tried not to meet Ellen’s eyes. Shame filled him from what he’d done in the past, of how he’d gotten Ellen’s husband killed on a hunt. It was a miracle she was even still speaking to him, but she was and he was grateful for that at least. He couldn’t let himself forget that he’d killed her Husband, Bill, without anyone else never letting him forget too.

 

“You think I’m a rookie?” Ellen demanded. “My daughter sleeps in this Roadhouse, you think I’d let anyone stay here who I hadn’t tested personally?”

 

“Bobby said he refused a drink.”

 

“He did, when he first came in. I put salt and holy water in a bowl of soup I gave him and I watched him eat it with a silver spoon. No reaction, not even a flinch or a glimpse of recognition. He’s just a little boy who happens to be looking for you, Winchester.”

 

“Why is he looking for me?”

 

“I don’t know. He’s very quiet, overly polite and almost painfully shy. I couldn’t get much out of him ‘cept his name was Harry and he was looking for you. He gave me three hundred dollars just because I said I could maybe get hold of you.”

 

“Seriously?” Dean asked.

 

Ellen nodded. “He was so happy when I said I could find you, John.”

 

“He went to the old house in Lawrence.” John sighed as he sat at the bar stool.

 

Ellen gave him and the two boys a drink, with the usual splash of holy water, just to be sure.

 

“The woman who lives there said he knew about me, but not about Sammy.” Dean told her as he took a gulp of the whiskey.

 

“Now that’s strange. Why would he know about you and your Daddy, but not Sam? He’s a little kid and there’s only four years between you and Sam. Who would have known you back then and would have met Dean and not Sam? Was it when your boy went off to school?”

 

“I don’t know, I don’t remember any kid called Harry.” John growled.

 

“Would it help if I told you that he looks like you and your boys?” Ellen said. “It’s almost frightening to see. His hair is a mix of yours, John, and Sam’s, but those eyes almost perfectly match Dean’s, just a bit brighter and a bit darker.”

 

“I have my Mother’s eyes.” Dean said with a hard edge. “How can he have my eyes, with Dad and Sammy’s hair?”

 

“You been playing around?” Ellen asked him bluntly.

 

“No! Why does everyone keep asking me that? I never fathered any child, especially not at fifteen!”

 

“Alright, let me find you some rooms, you can see Harry for yourselves tomorrow. But I’m telling you, that boy looks like a Winchester and I won’t have any of you hurting him, you hear? He’s been through enough.”

 

“What do you mean?” Sam asked concernedly.

 

“He’s a kid, how did you think he got here from Lawrence?” Ellen asked. “He took cabs, two buses and then he hitched a ride to here. He came in looking terrified, close to tears, his jeans were broken and he had a red mark over his mouth, looked like it was from duct tape. His lips were bleeding. I think the driver he hitched a ride with was a sicko.”

 

“Is he alright?” Sam asked horrified. “He’s just a kid!”

 

“He wouldn’t say. He just shook his head and tried to deny it, but I saw right through him, he got that look on his face that kids’ get when they’re trying hard not to cry.”

 

Ellen led them, silent, stunned almost in horrified thoughts, to two spare rooms in the back where she bid them goodnight. The implications that this boy was related to them somehow, that he might have been attacked and raped that very day. It played heavily on their minds and kept them from sleep.

John in particular found it incredibly hard to fall asleep and he stayed awake for most of the night in the room that Ellen had let him use, thinking hard about where a twelve year old boy had come from who looked like a Winchester with Mary’s eyes. He didn’t know what to think about the possibility of this boy travelling through so many states apparently alone, nor about him possibly being raped by a truck driver who had agreed to bring him to the Roadhouse.

His mind kept running over all sorts of possibilities and he just wanted the morning to come so that he could see this Harry kid for himself. He could hear Dean and Sam arguing in the room next to his as Dean once again protested his innocence of fathering a child at just fifteen and accused Sam of being the father, to which Sam just laughed and pointed out he would have been just eleven when the kid had been born.

He wanted to believe Dean when he said this boy wasn’t his, but his boy had been given very few freedoms growing up, so when he found a girl, he was often reckless. He didn’t know how to feel if this Harry turned out to be Dean’s son. He was a bad Father, he knew that, so it was obvious that he’d be a bad grandfather too. Also he doubted that Dean would take well to full time Fatherhood, or even to part-time Fatherhood. He wondered where Harry’s Mother was and why she was letting him wander all over America on his own.

John sighed and tried to get to sleep, at least Dean and Sam had stopped their arguing after having a good laugh about the ridiculousness of Sammy fathering a child at eleven.

He didn’t sleep for long despite how tired he actually was. It felt like he’d only just fallen asleep before he was up again at just gone dawn, anxious to see this Harry for himself.

He dressed himself and then went next door to wake up Dean and Sammy, he wanted to talk to Ellen some more before he met with Harry and he hurried his sons up before leading them out into the main bar area of the Roadhouse.

 

“He’s not talking much this morning.” Ellen said as soon as he arrived at the bar counter.

 

“He’s awake?”

 

“Yeah, he got up with the birds. He’s sat at the booth just behind you. The adorable little boy with the jet black, messy curls who’s swinging his legs under the chair. He’s being very quiet and I don’t think he slept at all.”

 

John turned and caught sight of the tiny boy at the table. His feet didn’t touch the floor and he was indeed swinging them, his hair was a mass of long, messy curls and tufts that went in every which way and his table was spread out with several books, a brand new laptop and the little boy was scribbling in a notebook.

 

“Any idea what he’s doing?”

 

“No clue. I gave him a drink and he went right back to the table he was at yesterday and got all of that out. I think he might be doing homework or something.”

 

“How do we go about this then?” Dean asked awkwardly.

 

“Harry, sweetie. Bring that glass over here.” Ellen called out.

 

John swallowed hard as the head of messy curls swung around as his name was called and he caught sight of the bright green eyes and the torn lips from what Ellen had said was duct tape. They were just starting to scab over and they looked painful and sore. One half of his face was faintly bruised like he’d been smacked across the face incredibly hard. His hand clenched tight into a fist, that bruise was too old to have been from yesterday.

The little boy nodded his head and grabbed the empty glass and came over. He barely reached John’s elbow as he put the glass on the counter for Ellen with a soft smile.

 

“Let me refresh this for you, sweetie. In the meantime, why don’t you say hi to Sam?”

 

Sam stepped forward immediately and John wondered why the hell Ellen had Sam, the tallest of them, step forward when Harry immediately took three steps back away from him, his eyes widening in panicked fear. Though thinking more critically about it, it was likely because Harry would recognise the names John and Dean and because Sam was the more accepting and tactful out of the three of them. He was less gruff and more patient.

 

“Hi, Harry. I’m Sam. How are you?”

 

“Fine.” Came the whispered, strangled reply.

 

“Ellen says that you’re looking for John Winchester.”

 

Harry looked interested then and he nodded. “Can you help me?”

 

“Yeah, I can.”

 

“Please, I just want to speak to him. That’s all.” Harry said and John could only see a strange, eager happiness on his face with no lie.

 

This up close it was easy to see exactly how that woman, Jenny, and Ellen had both believed that Harry was a Winchester. He looked like himself and his Mary. He looked like his boys. There were mistakes, of course. This boy was too small, too thin, too shy and timid. He kept second guessing himself, he was naïve and unaware of danger if he’d hitch hiked a ride with someone who had raped him.

If he ever found the driver who had hurt this little boy, he’d beat the shit out of him and throw the bastard into a ditch to die slowly with the rats.

 

“What do you want to speak to him about?” He asked.

 

Recognition flared in those green eyes and he burst out ‘It’s you!’ before he became very shy and huddled himself up, ducking his head shyly as he found sudden interest in his battered, broken trainers. John felt sick as he realised that Harry was acting as though he was expecting a physical reprimand. This went deeper than just one sicko driver, he was almost sure of it.

 

“How do you know that?” Sam asked softly.

 

Harry peeked up at all three of them before he slipped a hand into his pocket and the three of them tensed until he pulled out a brand new cell. He pushed a few buttons and a dial tone came out and then John heard his own voice from his voicemail.

 

“Why didn’t you call Dean?” John found himself asking.

 

“You said in the message to call him only if it was an emergency. I just wanted to meet you, it wasn’t an emergency. Besides, I didn’t really know what to say and I didn’t know if I would have been taken seriously or not. It could have been taken as a prank call.”

 

“Okay, you got me here now, why did you want to meet me?”

 

Harry became so shy that John could almost see him wishing for the floor to open up beneath him. He sighed. He needed to try another tactic here, he was obviously asking the wrong questions, but he just wanted to know where Harry had come from, why he was here, how he looked like himself and his beloved Mary. He just wanted the boy to answer him straight so that he could get to the bottom of this mystery.

 

“Where are your parents?” He asked. “Why are you here alone? Why have you travelled all this way, on your own, just to see me?”

 

“I…I just wanted to meet you.” Harry said quietly.

 

“Your accent suggests Britain, though it seems to be a mix of something else.”

 

“I go to a boarding school in Scotland for ten months a year, it messes with my accent.” Harry told him.

 

“So where are you from, where do you live?” John asked.

 

Harry bit his already abused lip and avoided his gaze.

 

John tugged at his hair and tried to think of what he was missing here, as he tried to think of a question that would help him figure this out, one that Harry was actually comfortable with answering. Which gave him an idea.

 

“What is your full name?” He asked, hoping that that would give him a clue.

 

“Harry John James Potter.”

 

John felt like he’d just been punched in the head, square between the eyes, as his stomach had just dropped through his feet. He shot a hand out quickly to steady himself on the bar top. He turned away from Harry and towards the bar and he took in several deep, steadying breaths. This couldn’t be happening.

 

“Dad?” Dean questioned, placing a hand on his shoulder awkwardly.

 

“Your parents are Lily and James Potter.” John stated hoarsely as he turned to look back at those massive, expressive eyes, so much like Lily Potter’s, exactly like his Mary’s. He didn’t need to ask, he already knew. Just hearing the boy’s full name and everything, this entire mystery, fell completely into place.

 

Harry nodded with a smile that he had finally understood what Harry was too shy to say outright.

 

“But biologically, you’re mine and Mary’s.” John carried on and Harry nodded again.

 

“Wait, wait, how does that happen?” Dean asked in shock.

 

“When you were about two, a couple came to Mary and me and explained that they were looking for people who looked like them to donate eggs and stuff to them because they couldn’t have children of their own. We spent a year talking and working everything out before Mary and I agreed. We would donate our… _samples_ , to James and Lily so that they could have a baby. They’d become good friends to us in that year, we wanted to do this for them, we wanted to give them a baby of their own.”

 

Harry dashed back to the table he’d spread all of his stuff out on and he dug into a backpack and brought out a very old book. He came back and showed it to them. It was a diary of the entire process, including the list of names of other potential donors, Lily and James meeting them for the first time, and then all the subsequent times, and it explained why Harry had known about Dean and not Sam, because Sam hadn’t been born at that time. John smiled as he read that Lily had thought them to be the perfect couple, the perfect donors for their baby and she had gushed over how adorable Dean had been.

 

“It was going through this process that made Mary and me want another baby.” John said wistfully. “A little over a year after we’d given the samples, we had Sammy.”

 

“Why did they wait so long to have you? I was three when they got the samples they needed.” Dean asked. “You should be older than Sammy!”

 

Harry smiled. “They were still trying to have their own baby, trying to find ways to counter my Mum’s defective eggs or a way to use my Father’s sperm and it took them years before they gave up. They used the donated samples only as a last resort.”

 

“Where are they now?” John asked furiously. “They loved you so much, they loved you ten years before you were even born, why would they let you travel across America from London alone?!”

 

“They’re dead.” Harry told him softly.

 

“That’s why you’re here, looking for me.”

 

Harry nodded. “I found out this summer that I…that I was a surrogate baby.”

 

“They never told you?” Sam asked.

 

“They never had a chance to. I was a baby when they were killed.”

 

“Please tell me you weren’t six months old.” Dean sighed.

 

Harry looked at him strangely. “No, I was fifteen months old. My Dad was killed at the bottom of the stairs and my Mum was killed in my nursery.”

 

“While you were in it?” Sam asked.

 

Harry nodded. “Yeah. The house was on fire and a brave police officer rushed in to find me because he could hear me crying. Or at least that’s my understanding of it.”

 

The three of them shared a look and Harry frowned at them.

 

“What? Why is that somehow significant? It was just some madman who broke it and killed them.” Harry said.

 

“You were a baby, how do you know?”

 

Harry bit his lip. He’d always been told about the story of how Voldemort had broken into his house and murdered his parents before failing to kill him, but he’d been a baby, strictly speaking, he had no idea what had happened or how anything had gone down, only what other people had told him about that night.

 

He shook his head. “I suppose I don’t. It’s just what everyone keeps saying to me. I’ve been taking what everyone else said as the truth, but I was only fifteen months old, I don’t remember anything, so I’m not sure.”

 

“So who have you been living with and why have they let you come here on your own? You were supposed to come to me and Mary if your parents died, that was the arrangement we made.”

 

A little pink tongue slipped out and Harry looked down and off to his right.

 

“I live with my Aunt and Uncle, they know I’m here.”

 

“Somehow I think that’s a lie.” John told him and Harry winced at being caught out so quickly and easily. “How old are you?”

 

“Fourteen.”

 

“Seriously?” Dean asked. “I wasn’t as small as you when I was ten!”

 

Harry blushed and his head dropped again. A small hand pressed against a thin ribcage and John’s eyes narrowed. He recognised the signs of hidden pain, Dean and Sam had both been stubborn with their injuries too, they still were.

It made him remember about what Harry had been through the day before and he really wanted to find the driver who had harmed Harry, his own son, even if he and Mary had never raised him. It didn’t matter, he was still made from them and without James and Lily, he was free to claim Harry if he wanted to, it seemed like Harry wanted him to as well, he’d come all this way just to meet him after all.

The problem was, he had no idea what to do with a fourteen year old who was apparently a runaway from Britain. He sighed.

 

“Grab your stuff, I’m not going to leave you anywhere, you’re staying with me.”

 

Harry grinned then and he rushed to pack all of his books back into the backpack.

 

“Is this a good idea?” Dean asked him.

 

“It’s a terrible idea.” John answered gruffly. “But what other choice do I have? He has no clue about anything, he was attacked just yesterday because he hitched a ride with the wrong person. I can’t just abandon him.”

 

“Yeah, I was thinking that too. What I wouldn’t give to have ten minutes with that paedophile.” Dean grumbled as Harry jogged back to join them, going all shy again.

 

John touched his shoulder and he had to clench his jaw when Harry flinched violently. He wouldn’t need ten minutes with that sicko, he’d only need five.

He kept his arm around Harry’s back and Harry walked stiffly as if expecting an imminent attack.

 

“You take care of him, Winchester.” Ellen said as they drew level with where she was collecting empty glasses and bottles. She put her hand into her pocket and handed Harry a slip of paper. “This is my number, Harry. Don’t be a stranger.”

 

“Thank you, Mrs Ellen.” Harry said softly, accepting the slip of paper.

 

“Yeah, thanks for everything, Mrs Ellen.” Dean said with a shit eating grin. Ellen whacked him as he passed.

 

John led Harry to his truck and watched as the small boy had to climb the truck like it was a tree to get in. It made him smile.

He made sure that Dean and Sam got into the Impala and he saw them talking intensely, probably about finding out that they had a full blooded baby brother they hadn’t known about. He was going to be torn a new one by them both for not mentioning that he and Mary had donated to another couple to make them a full blooded sibling.

 

“Where are we going?” Harry asked him with a hint of innocent curiosity as he buckled himself in securely. John couldn’t help noticing that Harry was turned slightly more towards him and he kept a hand on the door handle. He really, really wanted five minutes alone with that truck driver.

 

“Sioux Falls, in South Dakota.”

 

“That’s the state above this one, yes?”

 

“That’s right, Sioux Falls is on the eastern edge of South Dakota.”

 

“I’ve been trying to learn the states and where they are. Is that where you live?”

 

“No, Harry. After…after Mary died, I didn’t want to settle anywhere. We’re going to a friend of mine.”

 

“Okay.” Harry accepted easily and whether he could feel how uncomfortable he was with talking or whether he didn’t like talking either, Harry dug a book out of his backpack and huddled down into his overlarge clothing to read silently.

 

After an hour he could almost forget that Harry was even in the truck with him as he read in utter silence and wrote in a large journal he had rested on his knees, also silently. He didn’t ask him to slow down, didn’t ask him to stop for bathroom breaks, he drank from a bottle of water he also had in his bag and he didn’t seem to get hungry.

Sam and Dean had been forever complaining about anything they could when he’d taken them from one motel to another and they had always been hungry at Harry’s age, he thought it was a natural part of being a teenager as they grew like weeds, but Harry wasn’t growing and Ellen said that all he’d had was a bowl of soup the afternoon of the day before. He should have been starving.

 

“You hungry?” He asked a little awkwardly.

 

“Oh, no. I’m okay, thank you.” Harry answered simply before going back to his book.

 

Harry was still far too polite for his liking. It made him uncomfortably aware of his own lack of manners and his coarse language. He almost wished that Harry would talk, but he seemed far too involved with his book as he read like a dehydrated man drank down water.

He caught sight of a picture of what looked like a horse as Harry turned the page before looking back at the road.

 

“You interested in animals?” He asked.

 

“Definitely. I love learning about all sorts of creatures that live around the world.”

 

“You want to be some sort of domestic vet?”

 

Harry chuckled. “No. I don’t think I’d like sorting out domestic animals, I like the bigger, more dangerous ones. Lions, tigers, wolves. Those sorts of animals. I was thinking of maybe going on an African safari when I’m in my twenties, to see them in their natural habitats. That would be brilliant, but first, I need to research as much as I can about all different animals.”

 

“And finish your education.” John said sternly.

 

“I took Care of Creatures as an elective at school, technically this is part of my education.” Harry told him.

 

John wondered what sort of school Harry went to, but then he had no idea what curriculum that Britain kept, let alone a Scottish boarding school, for all he knew Care of Creatures was a perfectly acceptable elective, though it didn’t sound like one.

Harry was engrossed deeply back in his book and John sighed and concentrated on getting them both to Bobby’s. He wondered how Harry would react when he found out about some of the dangerous creatures he, Dean and Sam took care of.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Harry looked at the salvage yard in curiosity as he stuck close to John, his backpack over his good shoulder. John touched his injured shoulder and Harry jumped before he could stop himself and a frisson of pain flared from the wound, spreading out over his back. He berated himself harshly as he walked up the old, worn, wooden porch steps.

John hammered on the door and Harry shifted slightly behind John as he didn’t know who would be opening the door. The scruffy, bearded man with the white and green, utterly filthy baseball cap on was not really what he was expecting.

 

“The boys called ahead, this him?”

 

“Yeah, this is Harry. Harry, this is Bobby.”

 

“Hello, Mister Bobby.”

 

“Hell kid, call me Bobby.”

 

Harry just smiled and nodded. John accepted a shot glass of a clear liquid that Harry thought might have been vodka, but John knocked it back so easily. He baulked when he was offered one too.

 

“I’m only fourteen, I can’t have vodka.” He insisted, holding his hands up and backing away.

 

The two men chuckled deeply and Harry looked between them both with a frown.

 

“It’s just water, Harry. Bobby’s a bit eccentric.” John explained.

 

“Oh.” Harry took the little glass and stared at it.

 

“Just knock it back in one.” John encouraged.

 

Harry ignored him and he had to swallow it down in four big gulps.

 

“What was that?” A voice said behind him. “You’d be awful at shots.”

 

Dean jogged up the porch steps grinning and Sam followed him. They knocked back their own shots of water as if this was completely commonplace behaviour and Harry was the only one who found the entire thing totally bizarre. Maybe it was commonplace for the apparently eccentric Bobby as Sam and Dean hadn’t hesitated or said a word about knocking back shots of water as if it was completely normal. He frowned at all four men and wondered what the hell he’d let himself in for.

 

“Why water?” Harry asked as the first thing that came to mind.

 

“Water works well and comes from the tap.” Bobby said and Harry nodded easily.

 

Harry followed John into the living room, or he thought it was the living room as it had a couple of settees and a chair in it and a coffee table, but it was so full of books that Harry twitched. He wished Hermione had been here so that he could show her, her future living room.

 

“You touch those books and you’ll be banned from this room.” Bobby told him seriously.

 

Harry nodded hesitantly, but he really wanted to go looking through some of them, especially as he saw one with the word creatures on the spine.

Instead he allowed Sam to steer him to the settee and he sat on it awkwardly, perched on the end of it with his backpack in his lap. He stayed there, perfectly still, holding onto his bag as if it would be snatched from his very hands if he loosened his hold on it or put it down.

 

“Jeez, Harry. Relax a little.” Dean told him as he noticed the ramrod straight back and the tension running through the shoulders of his baby, baby brother.

 

Harry bit his lip and tried to relax, but it was difficult. He didn’t know these men, he didn’t really know where he was or how to leave if anything happened. He had to remind himself that he’d wanted this outcome. He’d wanted to find John Winchester, his Father, and his older brothers. That didn’t mean that he wasn’t nervous though and although they’d been decent and even kind to him so far, he wasn’t sure if that wasn’t just the shock of finding him and realising that he was actually fully blood related to them.

Eventually, with the quiet, if a bit rough, conversation and the laughter, it became too much effort to remain so tensed. Harry relaxed each part of his body in turn as he came down from the cliff edge of being ready to flee at any moment as he realised that the four men were trying to put him at ease with their light topic choices of conversation and their easy laughter.

 

“Why don’t you read some more or get your laptop out?” Sam suggested with a kind smile. “I do it all the time, Bobby has good internet connection.”

 

“He won’t mind?” Harry asked so quietly he had trouble hearing himself.

 

“Of course not.” Sam grinned and shook his head for emphasis as he went into his own bag and dragged out his own laptop. He turned it on and Harry watched as Bobby didn’t even blink or take notice of what Sam was doing.

 

Harry watched Bobby before looking back at Sam, who was happily clicking away at his laptop keys, before looking back at Bobby, who’d noticed that Sam had his laptop out and he didn’t even blink over it.

Harry sat further back on the settee, relaxing fully and getting comfortable as he got his own laptop out, getting Sam to help him with connecting to Bobby’s Wi-Fi. He felt more secure now that he wasn’t sitting so stiffly, his mind taken away from his turbulent thoughts as he was easily distracted with his laptop.

He didn’t care that his feet were a foot off of the floor, or at least he hadn’t until Dean shook his leg by the shin as he walked past. Then he became self-conscious about it and he scowled, moving to sit forward until his feet were on the floor again, even if it meant there was a foot of space between him and the back of the settee.

He was aware of Sam lounging next to him, his long legs were bent, feet to the floor and his lower legs weren’t even touching the settee. Why the hell couldn’t he have been as tall as Sam? Or even as tall as Dean, who fit more comfortably on the settee, but still had both feet firmly on the floor and his back to the cushions.

Harry ignored the two of them, Sam next to him on the settee and Dean on the other settee adjacent to Sam. John and Bobby had gone into the next room, but Harry could still hear them talking as he opened his last research page and started reading.

Eventually he slipped back onto the settee without realising it and he curled his legs up and under him, laptop on his thighs as he scrolled down the page and continued reading.

Someone closed the top of his laptop, careful not to catch his fingers, and Harry startled and scowled up at Dean, who was waving a paper bag at him.

 

“You need to eat. Ellen said she gave you a bowl of soup over twenty-four hours ago. You gotta be hungry by now.”

 

Harry took the bag and opened it to find a massive burger and fries. He smiled behind the bag. It was the most food any relative had ever given him in one go before.

 

“Thank you.” He said softly as he put the laptop down and dug out the burger from the paper bag.

 

He stared at it for a while, he’d never seen a burger so big before and he wondered how much it had cost to buy. It looked like it had costed a small fortune and he felt like he’d never get his mouth around it. It helped his nervousness that Dean was trying his hardest to stuff his own burger into his mouth whole though.

John and Bobby were back in the room again, John sat next to Dean and Bobby was in the chair and they had their own burgers and fries that they were eating with their hands, not a napkin in sight.

 

“Oh hell, you aren’t a vegetarian are you?” Dean asked suddenly. “I didn’t even think to ask you.”

 

“No, no I’m not.” Harry insisted quickly. “I’m not fussy when it comes to food.”

 

Harry stopped thinking so hard then and he ate the burger happily before he ate the fries. He was the last one to finish, but no one else seemed to care. He stood up, holding the empty bag, a little lost as to where to put it or where to go to get rid of it.

 

“Pass it here.” Sam said with a smile that Harry couldn’t decipher. He nonetheless did as Sam had asked and handed over the empty paper bag.

 

He sat back on the settee and pulled his most recent book out and started reading.

 

“Is that a bisected horse?” Sam asked, his voice filled with horror and disgust as he caught sight of the picture as he walked back past Harry.

 

Harry looked at the diagram that showed the side view of a unicorn that was cut in half to show its organs and Harry nodded shyly.

 

“How can you look at that after just eating a burger?”

 

“It doesn’t bother me.” Harry said. “Blood, guts and gore have never bothered me. My Uncle hammered a nail through his finger once, my Aunt fainted, my cousin ran away and I just stood there watching. It was fascinating to see his reaction and the blood pouring down his arm.”

 

“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?” Sam asked curiously.

 

“I was seven.” Harry answered. “I couldn’t reach the phone on the wall.”

 

He didn’t think it would be right to tell them that he’d found the whole thing hilarious because Vernon had been threatening to hit him in the head with the hammer just moments before. He’d gotten two weeks in the cupboard for distracting Vernon and causing him to put the nail through his finger. After he’d stuffed himself full of food and stashed some fruit in his cupboard that was, because they’d left him on his own at home while they’d all rushed to the hospital.

 

“Now that, I can believe.” Dean laughed.

 

“Why are you looking at a picture of a bisected horse?” Sam asked.

 

“Its research for my Care of Creatures class at school. I need to learn the general anatomy of several creatures so that they can be better treated or operated on.”

 

“This is what they teach fourteen year olds these days?” Bobby asked as he looked at the book too.

 

Harry nodded. “You should see some of the other classes I have to take.”

 

He dug out another book that he had been sure had more information on unicorns. He needed to find out why their colouring changed depending on their maturity. It didn’t look like they had any added organs or anything that would explain the colour change, so Harry reasoned that it was likely hormonal. He needed to get his hands on some unicorn blood, purely for research reasons, to see if the adults had different hormones in their blood compared to the blood of the golden foals or the silver adolescents.

 

“Is that book written in Latin?” Dean asked him. “ _Latin_?!”

 

Harry blinked and looked down at the book to realise that it was one of his Latin creature books. “Well, yeah. I go to a boarding school, learning Latin is pretty much a must.”

 

“You any good at it?” Bobby asked him.

 

“That depends…how good does good mean?” Harry frowned. “I’ve only been going to the school for four years, since I was eleven.”

 

Bobby went to one of his shelves and searched high and low for a book before holding it out for him to take. Harry put his own books down and his laptop before taking it.

Harry opened the very old book to the first page and he read it consideringly. Trying his hardest to translate what seemed to be a very ancient form of Latin.

 

“You understand that?” John asked him after several minutes.

 

Harry bit his lip and called upon four years of learning Latin to better understand spells to try and decipher the text in this book. “Yeah, just about. It’s a strange form of Latin that isn’t at all what I’m used to in school though…it reminds me more of ancient Greek, which is probably understandable, seeing as the ancient Greeks and the Latin speaking Romans were intermingled. If I had to guess I’d say that this was written in Latin by a Greek because some of these words are actually ancient Greek, not true Latin. But it’s literally a set of instructions on how to make a blessed…well this word, pendere, it’s either pendant or to hang to my understanding, but I think from the general gist of the text it means a hanging pendant to put around your neck. It’s basically a set of instructions on how to make a blessed amulet to ward off evil.”

 

Harry flipped the page and started reading. He became absorbed and he sat back as he read the book one page at a time, taking his time as he got out one of his spare pads of parchment and he wrote out words he didn’t know and listed guesses from the general context of what he was reading.

 

“You sure it’s a good idea to let him read that?” Sam asked quietly.

 

“There’s nothing in that book but how to do blessings for protection amulets and how to make holy water.” Bobby said. “I’m surprised he knows as much as he does, that school must be damn good at teaching Latin is all I can say.”

 

The four of them looked to Harry as he turned a page, scribbling on his notebook.

 

“His school sounds awesome.” Dean said with a grin. “If the schools me and Sammy went to taught us how to operate on animals and taught us Latin I might have enjoyed it more.”

 

“So what are you gonna do with him?” Bobby asked John seriously.

 

John sighed and pushed a hand through his hair. “What can I do with him? He’s mine…mine and Mary’s. He’s one of our boys and I promised James and Lily that I’d take him in if anything ever happened to them. They promised to take in Dean if anything happened to me and Mary in return.”

 

“Really?” Dean asked.

 

“Yeah, they loved you…you even called them Uncle and Auntie.” John said with a soft smile of remembered memories. “They’d have loved you too, Sammy. We sent them a letter about you being born, but…but Mary died before I got a reply and I took you both and I left that house, so I never heard from them again.”

 

“I can’t believe I have a younger brother.” Sam said with a grin as he looked back at Harry, who was utterly absorbed with the book that Bobby had given him. Harry reminded him so much of himself as he sat there devouring the book and making even more notes onto his spare pad. His other notebook, the one for the horses, had been put back into his bag.

 

“I’ve got two pains in the ass to look after now.” Dean grumbled, but there was no heat behind it as he grinned.

 

“No offense, but isn’t it past his bedtime or something?” Bobby asked.

 

John looked at his watch and sighed. It was getting late.

 

“Harry, let me show you where you’ll be staying.”

 

Harry didn’t show any reaction, he carried on reading, frowning and biting his already abused, scabbed over lip as he mulled something over.

 

“Hey, that’ll still be there tomorrow.” He tried, walking closer, but Harry still didn’t react.

 

John touched his shoulder and Harry reacted as if he’d burst a balloon in his ear, leaping away and gasping in shock.

 

“Hey, it’s alright. You wanna come see where you’ll be sleeping?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Harry said breathlessly. “Can I keep reading this, please, Mister Bobby?”

 

Sam and Dean both started laughing. Harry bit his lip harder and looked at his feet.

 

“Sure kid, just stop calling me Mister Bobby.”

 

“Okay.” Harry said quietly as he collected up his stuff and followed John out into the passageway, up the surprisingly silent stairs and to a bedroom with two twin beds.

 

“I sleep on that bed there, you can have the other one. Dean and Sammy are next door and Bobby’s bedroom is opposite theirs. The bathroom is directly opposite this room.”

 

Harry nodded and he sat on the furthest bed from the door.

 

“Thank you for bringing me with you.” He said quietly.

 

John sighed and sat next to him on the little bed, aware that they needed to have this conversation. He cursed himself for being so bad with words and emotions.

 

“You’re my son, Harry. You may not have been born to me and Mary, but we cared a hell of a lot about James and Lily and we signed all the papers that would allow us to take you in if needed and I still stand by that choice. If I’d known that Lily and James were gone, then I would have taken you in, in a heartbeat because you’re my son. Though you need to know that I do live a rough life, Harry. We don’t stay in one place for too long, we never have after that night and I drag my boys all over America and I’d hate to do the same to you.”

 

“I wouldn’t mind.” Harry replied in an almost whisper. “I haven’t seen much of America yet.”

 

“What about your school?”

 

Harry looked at his dangling feet. “I don’t want to go back. I’m looking into getting my work mailed to me so that I can do it at home. I’d just have to go to an official centre for my exams.”

 

“Because you want to stay with us?” John asked awkwardly.

 

Harry nodded. “Family means a lot to me. I haven’t had much family and those I do have…well I just found out that they aren’t even related to me by blood.”

 

Harry kept his eyes on his hands, but his jaw clenched in anger as he thought of the Dursleys. He’d been their slave, their punching bag, for all those fucking years when he’d had a biological Father and two older brothers who were willing to take him in and actually look after him.

It frustrated him to the point of angry tears that he’d been stuck with them, being beaten and forced to cook and clean and tend the gardens when his own Father was now sat beside him, trying to relax him and make him more comfortable.

John Winchester might live a hard life, he might not stay in any one place for longer than a few weeks, but Harry could guarantee that it would be a million times better than what he’d had with the Dursleys.

 

“Blood doesn’t have to make family.” John told him as gently as his gruff voice could manage, giving a token try to get the boy to change his mind, but his heart wasn’t really in it. He knew that it probably wasn’t what was best for Harry, in fact it was probably one of the worst, most selfish, decisions he’d ever made, but he didn’t want his son, Mary’s youngest son, away from him now that he knew that he existed.

 

Harry nodded. “I know, but I want to get to know you. And Sam and Dean too…I mean, I didn’t even know about Sam being alive. I was excited just finding out about you, then I found out about Dean too and I was just so excited that I jumped on a plane and flew straight out here the day after I’d found out.” Harry smiled at him, those clear, bright eyes, so much like Dean’s, so much like Mary’s, alight with excitement and happiness as Harry turned to look up at him. “It led me on a goose chase, but it was worth it.”

 

“Despite that driver who took you to Harvelle’s?” John asked, trying to broach the subject. Harry flinched as if he’d physically struck him.

 

Harry swallowed heavily and looked at his tiny, delicate wrists, which John noticed were bruised as if someone had held them very tightly or had tied them up. He took those tiny wrists into his massive, paw like hands and rubbed his thumbs gently over the bruises.

 

“It’s alright to talk about what he did.”

 

Harry swallowed heavily again and shook his head, his black, messy curls flying all over the place.

 

“I can’t.” Harry said, choked up. “Not yet, I’m still…I’m still afraid.”

 

“You don’t have to be scared of him anymore. If he found out where you were, the bastard would have to get past me first and I’ll tell you now, anyone who comes through that door will not be given a warm welcome by anyone in this house.”

 

Harry cracked a thin smile at that and John left him alone. He didn’t want to push Harry too much, but he would find out the extent of what that filth had done to his son and he would try and get Harry to trust him enough to see to the injuries that were making him wince every now and then and move so stiffly. He was going to try his damnedest to make this situation work while keeping Harry as safe as possible. Failure was not an option here.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: With this chapter, the fifth and final update of the month of September, I’m exhausted but very happy. I just need to survive another five updates in October and then I’ll be taking a much needed break, but one of the five updates will be another chapter for this fic. A chapter which is already complete and just in need of edits and a final read through and is currently over 13,000 words.
> 
> There was also some confusion over Harry using magic at the airport and while the trace did take effect and alert the Ministry, they are not so utterly foolish as to send him an owl while he’s in the middle of a Muggle airport. As for him using magic in America, the trace doesn’t stretch that far and there is no American Ministry, so he’s fine using magic in America, not that he knows that just yet.
> 
> I hope you lovelies have enjoyed this second chapter, the third will be some when next month, those on my Facebook will know more about that when I know more, seeing as my schedule for October has gone a bit wonky, but I will be updating this fic again,
> 
> StarLight Massacre. X


	3. Lessons in Trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last Time
> 
> Harry cracked a thin smile at that and John left him alone. He didn’t want to push Harry too much, but he would find out the extent of what that filth had done to his son and he would try and get Harry to trust him enough to see to the injuries that were making him wince every now and then and move so stiffly. He was going to try his damnedest to make this situation work while keeping Harry as safe as possible. Failure was not an option here.

Chapter Three – Lessons in Trust 

 

John made his way back down the stairs and wondered what he’d done to deserve what had happened to him in his life. First his Wife had been killed and his two baby boys had lost their Mother, then he’d found out about the vile creatures that terrorised innocent people the length and breadth of the country, he’d almost lost his boys several times over on hunts. His mind immediately pulled up the Shtriga incident and a cold shiver went down his spine as he remembered coming home to find that thing feeding on his baby Sammy. It was still one of the only hunts he’d ever bailed on and one of the worst hunts he’d been on that still, to this day, spread fear into his heart. If he hadn’t gotten back to the motel when he had…he closed his eyes and blocked out those thoughts.

Now he found out that his youngest, a boy who was only fourteen years old and had been created from him and Mary, had been orphaned at just fifteen months old. He needed to look into that house fire, because it struck very similar to how Mary had died. The only difference it seemed was how old Harry had been and the fact that James had also been killed.

He made it back to the living room as he run a hand over his growth of beard. He needed to figure out how he could look after Harry without getting him injured on a near daily basis. That boy had been hurt enough already. He wondered how far Harry would run if he just came out and told him the truth about what he, and his older brothers, did for a living. He was well aware how crazy it seemed and even people who had been victims of these creatures had had trouble believing what they’d truly been attacked by as they tried to reason away what they had actually seen with something more believable.

 

“How is he?” Sam, ever the concerned worrier, asked him.

 

John looked up at him, breaking his heavy thoughts, to see Sam and Dean sat next to one another on the one couch while Bobby was up and searching through his books, but he was still listening, even as he grumbled about finding appropriate books for Harry to study.

 

“Out of his depth and upset. His wrists are bruised like someone tied him up.”

 

“The driver?” Dean asked, his eyes, so much like Harry’s but without the gleam of innocent naïvety, were stone cold and as hard as flint.

 

“I think so. I tried to ask, but he said he couldn’t speak about it yet. Said he was still afraid.”

 

“He’s got nothing to be afraid of here.” Bobby said seriously. “Anything that comes through that door will be full of buckshot before that boy even knows that its here.”

 

“I second that.” Dean said as he stalked angrily to the fridge and pulled out four beers. He handed one to each man and kept one for himself. “So what are we gonna do with him? Have we gotta get him to this school of his in Scotland?”

 

“He’s not going back.” John said as he took a long pull on his beer.

 

“You can’t just take him out of school!” Sam burst out angrily, not about to let his Dad do the same to Harry as he had to him when he’d decided to go to Stanford, giving him that damn ultimatum that if he left for school he wouldn’t be allowed to come back.

 

“Sammy…” Dean tried to intervene, as he always did.

 

“I’m not taking him from anywhere.” John said as calmly as he could manage, hand tightening on the neck of his bottle to try and ease away his anger.

 

The very last thing he wanted right now was to start butting heads with Sammy again. They’d been doing so well since finding out about Harry and both his boys had done well with dealing with the fact that Harry was their full blooded younger brother, that he and Mary had donated what amounted to a surrogate baby to another couple twenty-four years ago.

 

“It would be easier if he was at this school of his for ten months a year, but he doesn’t want to go back and he decided it for himself. He said he wants to stay here, with us.” John told them, doing well to keep his cool.

 

“And you’re going to let him?” Sam asked, unwilling to give up.

 

He wasn’t able to see why the book hungry, seemingly intelligent young boy that Harry was, didn’t want to go back to his, apparently rather elite, boarding school. He didn’t want to see that spark of innocence drilled out of Harry, he didn’t want to watch as he was dragged about and into their messes, being trained to become a hunter. He didn’t want to see Harry become as cold and dysfunctional as the rest of them.

 

“Something is stopping him from wanting to go back, Sam.” John told him firmly. “There was a look on his face. I’m going to try and talk to him about it again, but between what that driver did to him and the issue of his school, him going back to school is the least pressing issue here. I’m not going to force him to go back to a school that he doesn’t want to go back to when he was attacked and possibly raped, I need to deal with that issue first as the bigger priority.”

 

“He won’t need to go back until August, maybe even as far away as September. But you said that he was there for ten months a year…which means he only went home for the summer holidays when the school would have been closed.” Bobby said. “It seems to me that he didn’t go home for any other holiday, not even Christmas, and he only went home when he was forced to. There’s something else going on here.”

 

John sat down and sighed heavily, drinking more beer.

 

“He’s too small an’ all.” Bobby carried on unrelentingly. “Ain’t no way that that boy is a healthy height or weight for his age and he was holding himself strange on the one side. Not to mention that bruise on his face and the cuts on his fingers.”

 

“I noticed that too.” John admitted gruffly. “I tried to see if there was any more damage done to him, but he’s hiding. Why else would he be wearing a sweater in the middle of summer?”

 

“He’s using it to hide more bruises?” Sam asked in shock.

 

“If he is then this goes deeper than you think.” Bobby told them. “If this had been a one off incident, then he wouldn’t be hiding those injuries. He wouldn’t even have those sweaters to hide the bruises with in the first place and he had nowhere to buy one from out in the middle of Nebraska before he made it to Ellen’s. He brought sweaters with him to hide those marks from anyone who’d see them. Why else would anyone wear a sweater in this god forsaken heat?”

 

“Wait, that would mean that he had them before he met that driver!” Dean burst out.

 

“If those people laid a damn finger on him…” John growled, trailing himself off as his hand clenched tight around his beer bottle.

 

He didn’t like that he hadn’t known about Harry’s existence, that he hadn’t known or even checked if James and Lily had used the samples to make a baby that was essentially his and Mary’s. He hadn’t given a thought to James or Lily in years and he felt guilty for that, they’d been wonderful friends to him and Mary over the year that they’d known them and he should have kept in contact for the mere fact that they could have given birth to his and Mary’s baby. If the demons had found out about Harry before he had….things could have gotten very grisly and he might never have gotten the chance to know his youngest son.

He’d already failed Harry before he’d even known about him. He’d been orphaned at a little over a year old and now it seemed like the people he’d been left with had been abusive as well. He was already angry that he hadn’t known about Harry, if it turned out that the people he’d been living with all these years had laid a single finger on him, he didn’t know what he’d do to the bastards.

 

“It’s no wonder he’s not talking about what that driver did…if this is commonplace to him then he’s probably used to hiding everything anyway.” Sam looked sickened, even as he said the words and John gritted his teeth hard at the mere thought of Harry thinking that this was normal. It was no wonder that he jumped and flinched whenever someone touched him.

 

“What the hell do we do?” Dean asked desperately.

 

“Leave it to me.” John sighed. “Can we stay here for a while, Bobby?”

 

“You know you can.” Bobby agreed immediately.

 

“I’ll see what I can get him to say tomorrow, for now he should be sleeping.”

 

“Maybe I could look this up, see what I can do to help.” Sam said, not waiting for an answer before he got his laptop out to see what he could dig up on the internet.

 

John drained his beer and sunk into his own thoughts. The very idea of his son, his and Mary’s son, being hurt in such a way filled him with such rage that he wanted to go on a hunt. It took every fibre of willpower he had not to leave and start searching for one just so that he could kill something.

Sam was clicking away at his laptop, searching out any websites that could help them deal with an abused teen. He spoke to Dean and Bobby when he found something interesting. John watched them for a bit, glancing at Dean as he cleaned his gun, exactly as he’d taught him years ago, before letting his mind float again, tuning in when Sam found something that he thought might help Harry, even a little bit.

At two in the morning, he ushered his older boys up the stairs and he went into his bedroom. Harry looked tiny in the bed, his face soft and relaxed as he slept. He looked impossibly younger in his sleep. His heart throbbed and he moved on automatic as he went up to Harry and pulled the covers up to his neck and tucked him in. He hadn’t tucked anyone in for a decade or more, but the familiar motions came to him without him having to think about it.

He noticed that Harry was wearing a long sleeved pyjama top and he looked flushed warm because of the summer heat. He saw the thick, hideous bruises on Harry’s wrists and he saw something on the underside that he hadn’t seen before, a thick bruise that was more on Harry’s arm than his wrist, like the branch on a tree…it was a bruise from a finger or a thumb, a man had gripped Harry’s wrists so tightly that he had bruised them badly. His teeth gritted again and he moved away before he started searching Harry’s sleeping body for more bruises.

He stripped himself off and pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms, despite how warm it was, just for Harry’s sake. He needed to get some sleep, he needed to be prepared for what was coming tomorrow.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Harry had changed out of his clothes as soon as John had closed the door, checking on his bruises and scabs quickly, using the mirror on the one wall to check on the vile, open wound in his one shoulder. It was open, a chunk of flesh missing, but it never bled anymore unless he was just out of the shower and rubbed it too vigorously. It was healing, just not particularly quickly.

He pulled on the long-sleeved shirt and the jogging bottoms he was using as pyjamas just in case his Father came back any time soon. He didn’t want him seeing anything more than he already had. The bruises and scabs that he couldn’t hide with clothes.

He climbed into his bed and he opened his backpack and got out his notebook and the book that Bobby had given to him. It was really interesting, not to mention incredibly difficult, to read, but he persevered and he managed to translate another paragraph.

He read and continued to decipher the ancient Latin until he started yawning every other minute and he had to put the book down. He switched off the bedroom light and snuggled down under his fresh covers. He never noticed John coming up or tucking him in, he was deeply asleep until he woke with a small gasp, sweating and panicked.

He’d had another nightmare. Thankfully not one of his screaming, thrashing ones so he hadn’t woken anyone else up. He calmed himself down and waited until he could breathe more easily and he could see better in the darkness before getting up.

He could make out the silhouette of John sleeping in the bed opposite his own. He sighed softly in thanks that the man hadn’t woken up. He grabbed his backpack and tiptoed across the floorboards and he cracked open the door just enough to slip himself out of the room before he closed the door again.

He made his way down the stairs and, aware that Bobby had told him not to touch his books, he went into the previously unseen room that happened to be the kitchen…he was not alone it seemed as Sam was sat, lost in his own thoughts, at the table in his own pyjamas.

 

“Hi Sam.” He said as quietly as he could, but Sam still jumped in surprise.

 

“Harry! What are you doing up?” He asked.

 

Harry looked away and shrugged.

 

“Nightmares?” Sam guessed.

 

Harry nodded.

 

“Me too.” Sam told him simply and Harry looked up at him quickly and he noticed the familiar sight of black bags under Sam’s eyes. He had his own black bags that stared back at him every time he looked into a mirror. Sam was telling him the truth. His older brother had nightmares of his own.

 

Harry sat opposite Sam and looked at his hands on the table top.

 

“Do you want to talk about it, Harry?” Sam asked and Harry shook his head vehemently. “It might help. It did for me when I was having nightmares. Dean finally made me tell him and it did make me feel better. I still have the nightmares, but not as often as I used to and they’re not as bad as they used to be either.”

 

“Why do you have nightmares?” Harry asked softly and Sam swallowed hard.

 

He’d been doing a lot of research since he’d found out about Harry’s possible abuse just hours ago and every single site he’d found and looked at had stressed the importance of trust. He knew that Harry was unlikely to trust him unless he trusted Harry first, which was difficult given the situation, but he took in a deep, calm breath and prepared to give Harry the edited version of what had happened to him and to Jessica while they’d been in Palo Alto. If he made the first move and extended the olive branch, then Harry was much more likely to take that branch and offer it back.

 

“I was in Stanford university from the age of eighteen to twenty-two, I…I had a girlfriend, Jess. It would be a year in November since she died and I guess it’s still affecting me, you know? There was a fire and…and Jess got caught in it. I couldn’t get her out. I can still see her, I can smell it and in my nightmares, I’m standing on the outside of it all, looking in and I’m screaming at myself to get her out, to save her, but I couldn’t.”

 

Harry’s soft, tiny hands reached out and wormed their way into his own, holding them, not saying anything, not telling him lies about how he couldn’t have done anything more than he’d already done, not tell him that Jess was in a better place or that the past was the past and he had to let go. Harry just sat there, saying nothing, holding his hands gently, just giving silent comfort and Sam took another deep, cleansing breath…this is what he’d needed, to be able to tell someone who wouldn’t judge him and who would just sit and listen without saying anything. He didn’t want empty words and he guessed that that was exactly what Harry needed too.

 

“That driver didn’t really do anything to me.” Harry said softly into the silence. “I didn’t really understand what was going on. I’ve never heard of rape, so I’m not sure if he did do that or not. He really frightened me though. I started getting uncomfortable when we were already driving. He was asking me how old I was, he…he thought I was younger than I actually am because I look younger. He got agitated when I said I was fourteen. That’s when I realised that maybe something was wrong. Then about a mile from the Roadhouse, he…he stopped the truck. I didn’t know what was going on or what he was doing and he started saying stupid things, like how naïve and innocent I was and how it made him hard or something. I didn’t understand that either.” Harry rambled, staring at his hands unable to look at Sam and unable to stop the flow of his thoughts now that the words had started tumbling from his mouth. “He…he just jumped on me and he got a leg over my waist and he got hold of both my wrists in his one hand and he got a roll of duct tape out of the glove compartment and covered my mouth with it. I panicked when he started tugging at my jeans. I got…I got my one leg free and I kicked him in the face repeatedly. I was just so scared of him. He was unconscious when I turned the key to start the engine and open the door. I just ran all the way to the Roadhouse. So he didn’t really do anything to me and I don’t want to be in trouble for kicking him unconscious.”

 

“It was self-defence, Harry. You won’t get into trouble for that.” Sam told him seriously. “He didn’t rape you, but it’s obvious that he was going to.”

 

“What is rape?” Harry asked him, looking up at him with those wide, green eyes.

 

“A disgusting crime committed by disgusting people.” Sam told him. “But you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Me and Dean and Dad will protect you and look after you, we’re not going to let anyone hurt you or take you away from us.”

 

“Promise?” Harry asked him insecurely.

 

“Yeah, I do. But what about your school?”

 

Harry bit his lip and turned away. “They never told me my real name or my real parentage. They would have known, I’m sure of it. They knew my parents really well as they went to school there themselves, they would have known that they weren’t able to have their own baby and that they were searching for surrogates, which means that they want me with my non-blood relatives for some reason. I have my guesses, but I can’t be certain, but I only found out about me being a surrogate baby a few days ago. I didn’t even know about my own family! They didn’t want me to know about you. If I went back to the school now, then I’m sure that they’d send me back to _them_.”

 

“Them?” Sam asked, but Harry just shook his head.

 

“I don’t want to talk about them.” Harry said and Sam noticed that Harry’s hand went unconsciously to his ribs. He _was_ hurt more than he was letting on.

 

“Are you injured anywhere else, Harry? We can help, you know. We have some knowledge of treating wounds and even making bruising better. I know Dad want’s to sort out your wrists later today. It’ll be better if you mention them to us, Harry. We want to help.”

 

“You don’t even know me.”

 

“That’s true, we don’t know you yet and you don’t know us either, but we want to get to know you, Harry and I hope that you want to get to know us too.” Sam insisted and Harry’s heart thudded in his chest. This was everything that he’d ever wanted and it was being offered to him on a plate and he wanted it. He wanted it so badly that his hands tightened on Sam’s.

 

“What were you studying at Stanford?” Harry asked curiously, changing the subject before he could get overwhelmed by his emotions and do something ridiculous, such a burst into grateful tears that his newly found family actually wanted to get to know the real him.

 

“Law.” Sam said and he loved that Harry’s eyes widened with astonishment and respect.

 

“That’s amazing. I know that being a law student is very difficult. I had career booklets and things at school, though our formal talks about what we want to do in the future won’t be until next year. We had to pick different electives at the end of our second year based on what we wanted to do when we were older. I chose Care of Creatures as one elective and it is one of my favourite subjects. I think I’d want to do something with animals, I’ve always had a special affinity with them and I’d love to go on Safari or something to see them in the wild! I love the more unusual animals, I’ve never really been drawn to cats or dogs as pets. They’re so mundane and common! I wanted something much different.”

 

“What did you get instead?” Sam asked with a smile at Harry’s excitement, thinking logically that maybe he had a snake or some other kind of reptile, maybe even a spider or a rat.

 

Harry grinned at him. “An owl.”

 

Sam’s eyes widened. “An owl, seriously?”

 

Harry nodded. “Hedwig. She’s a snowy owl and she follows me everywhere. I’m surprised she hasn’t shown up yet, though it is a way to fly from London to America.”

 

“She can find you?”

 

Harry nodded. “She can always find me, she’s amazing.”

 

“I can’t wait to see Dean’s face when he realises you have an owl.” Sam laughed.

 

“Some of the animals I’ve already seen.” Harry said with a grimace, thinking of Aragog, the basilisk, the merpeople and the Hungarian horntail, not to mention the sphinx and the blast ended Skrewts. “It’s unbelievable.”

 

“I know that feeling.” Sam told him with a secret smile and Harry laughed before he went digging in his backpack for a bottle of water that he still had left. “You thirsty? Can I get you a drink?”

 

“I’m okay, I’ve still got this left.” Harry said happily, shaking the half full bottle.

 

“Are you hungry? I’m not too good at cooking, I know the bare basics, but I’m sure I can get something together.”

 

“How do you not know how to cook?” Harry asked.

 

“You’re fourteen, how do you know how to cook?” Sam asked in reply.

 

Harry shrugged. “I just do. How do you not know how to cook in your twenties?”

 

“It was never really a problem, we’d just go to a diner if we were hungry. Though Bobby makes the best chilli.”

 

The shy little smile that Harry gave him made Sam feel all sorts of protective and like an actual big brother. He wondered if this was how Dean always felt about him and if it was, it was no wonder that he was always so worried about him. He sighed as he realised that Dean was going to be a million times worse than usual with Harry around. Harry who didn’t know what rape was and was covered in bruises from what he was becoming more and more convinced was actually long term abuse.

He and Harry stayed down in the kitchen, talking and laughing quietly until it was getting light out. Sam made sure to stay away from any heavy subjects and rapidly came to understand that any conversation to do with animals brought forth a burning passion in Harry that made him smile to see as Harry became animated and chatty for the first time. He wasn’t the painfully shy little boy who ducked his head and avoided eye contact when animals were being discussed. Harry yawned during one of their comfortable silences, resting his head against the table.

 

“Why don’t you go back upstairs?” Sam asked.

 

“I don’t want to wake anyone up.” Harry told him as he closed his eyes and crossed his legs on the chair, curling up almost like a cat.

 

“You won’t.” Sam said a little unconvincingly. He knew that his Dad would probably wake up the moment that Harry opened the bedroom door. He was surprised that Harry hadn’t woken him by coming down in the first place regardless of how tired his Dad had been.

 

Harry didn’t answer him and Sam smiled as he realised that Harry was asleep in the chair. Shaking his head he went up to his bedroom to get his laptop, noticing that Dean was sprawled over his bed, mouth parted as he breathed deeply, the thin bed cover was twisted all over the place as he slept in just his boxer shorts and despite all of that, his right hand was still under his pillow, no doubt holding the handle of his hunting knife. Just in case.

He shook his head as he made his way back down the stairs and booted up his laptop. He’d done some more research during the night after he and Dean had gone up to bed, but he was now even more determined to do research on what little he’d found out by talking to his little brother.

He lost track of time as Harry slept peacefully opposite him, but it was around half six in the morning when his Dad came into the kitchen and he relaxed his shoulders upon seeing Harry at the table.

 

“How long he been down here?” John asked as he checked on Harry.

 

“He came down at just gone four in the morning. I told him to go back up to bed, but he didn’t want to wake you up and he fell asleep at the table not long after, so I left him.”

 

“Why were you awake?” John asked with narrowed eyes.

 

“Nightmares, about Jess.” Sam sighed. “Harry was having nightmares too, about the driver. He wasn’t raped, but the bastard tried.”

 

“Watch your mouth.” John told him and Sam rolled his eyes. He was the only one not allowed to swear, if Dean did, he got a warning look, sometimes a verbal comment if he carried on excessively, but the minute a profanity crossed his lips, it was a straight out warning to stop.

 

“So he spoke to you about it?”

 

“Yeah, I was reading online and it said that he would not trust anyone until we showed trust in him first. I told him about Jess and how it still gave me nightmares and then he came right out and told me about what happened in that truck. Harry repeatedly kicked the guy in the face until he was unconscious before running to the Roadhouse. That’s how he got away and he’s worried about getting into trouble for doing it.”

 

“You’re sure he wasn’t…?”

 

Sam nodded. “Yeah, he told me about the attack in detail. He didn’t know what rape was, Dad. He didn’t know what was going on and the driver first frightened him when he asked after his age and was apparently agitated when Harry told him he was fourteen. The guy then stopped about a mile from the Roadhouse and said disgusting things to Harry that he didn’t understand and then attacked him, pinning his hips down with one of his legs and gripping his wrists tight as he used the other hand to slap duct tape over his mouth. Harry panicked when he started tugging on his jeans and that’s when he started kicking him and he didn’t stop until he was unconscious.”

 

“He’s too naïve and unaware of dangers for his own good.” John sighed.

 

“Don’t let him hear you calling him naïve or innocent. That driver said those things to him before saying that Harry made him hard and then attacking him. He didn’t know what that meant either.”

 

John scrubbed a hand over his face before switching on the coffee machine to make some much needed coffee. He’d woken up and the first thing he’d done was look over to check on Harry, only to find his bed empty and his newly acquired son nowhere to be seen. He’d panicked a little and come straight down the stairs to find him after realising that Harry’s backpack was also gone.

Finding out that the fourteen year old Harry didn’t know what rape was or what a man meant when he was hard also threw him for the loop. Was he the one that was supposed to have that talk with Harry? Dean had naturally found out on his own and all he’d had to do was remind him to take condoms with him…Sammy, well he didn’t know how things had gone down with Sammy but he assumed that Dean had given him the talk when he was a teenager but Sam had been more interested in books and his school work than hooking up with girls like Dean had, so he didn’t need to say anything to him. Harry it seemed was even less interested in that sort of thing than even Sam had been.

 

“Did he mention anything about those people he lives with?”

 

“No, but he…he didn’t mention their names or anything, he just said ‘them’ but he doesn’t want to go back to his school because he’s terrified that the school will send him back to ‘them’, he then told me that he didn’t want to talk about ‘them’ when I asked about it. The more he says the more I’m worried that they’ve hurt him really badly.”

 

“I’m sure of it.” John said as he filled a mug with coffee and placed it in front of Sam before pouring another mug. “The way he winces and pulls pained faces, I’m sure he has injuries that he’s trying to hide.”

 

“What can we do? He’s not just going to let us look.” Sam said.

 

“Might be the worst possible thing to do, but I’m going to have to make him show me where he’s injured. I wouldn’t let you boys hide your injuries either, and I won’t let him. If he has any cuts and they get infected, he could die from them. That’s unacceptable. When I deal with his wrists, I’ll see if I can’t coax him to show me himself, if he doesn’t, I’ll press him.”

 

“I don’t think he’ll respond well to it.” Sam warned seriously.

 

“What else do you expect me to do, Sam?” John demanded quietly, trying not to wake Harry up as he argued over his head. “He isn’t going to start trusting us overnight and these injuries he has could need immediate attention. We can’t afford to wait the months it’s going to take to get him to trust us to the extent of getting him to show us by himself. What if his ribs are broken and they pierce a lung or if he has an infected cut? If his face is this bad what do you think the rest of his body is going to look like?” John demanded in a furious whisper.

 

“I know, but doing this might ruin his trust completely!” Sam argued back just as furiously in a harsh whisper.

 

He didn’t want to fight with his Dad, he never did, but he wanted to help Harry in any way possible. He _knew_ that backing an already hurt and abused boy into a corner when he was in an unknown place with no escape, surrounded by people that he didn’t really know all that well was a very, very bad idea. He was worried that his Dad was going to make everything a hundred times worse and that this would send Harry running.

 

“It might.” John admitted slightly defensively. He really didn’t appreciate the blunt statement about this possibly destroying any and all trust that Harry had in him. “But at least he’d be safe and he’d be cared for. However, I think that though he’ll be unhappy with it, that once he’s been cared for and we show him that we won’t hurt him or act like those people, then he’ll understand that it was for his own good.”

 

“Dean isn’t going to like this either.” Sam told him, a scowl that Dean fondly referred to as Sam’s ‘bitch face’ aimed at him. John could see the doubts that Sam had clearly running through his eyes and across his expressions.

 

“I’m hoping to get Dean on side, you too.” John answered brusquely. “I can’t do this alone. I’m crap at this sort of stuff and you both know it. I can order him to show me, but it’s the aftercare that I’m not going to be good at and he’s going to need it. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the kid hated me after this, but I’m going to do it regardless, Sam. His health needs to come first and I can’t let him walk around with multiple injuries.”

 

Sam sighed and looked at Harry’s still bruised face squashed to the table. He nodded.

 

“Yeah, we’ll both be there. I just hate the thought of upsetting him so soon after meeting him.” Sam sighed reluctantly. His Dad had made up his mind already and he was going to do it with or without them. He realised that it would be better if they all stood together and helped one another out instead of bickering and arguing about it, which could in turn make the whole process even worse for Harry. And despite everything, they needed to do what was best for Harry and Sam was determined to support his little brother through this ordeal.

 

“I know you don’t want to upset him. I don’t want to upset him either, Sammy, but I’m not going to leave him to suffer in pain if he has been abused.” John said determinedly. He was not going to leave his boy in pain, he could no more leave Harry to suffer than he could Dean or Sam. He wouldn’t do it. “I don’t want him remaining with that pain when I can damn well do something about it. I reckon that it’s better to do this now while he’s not so used to us and we haven’t got much of his trust to break; then after we’ve got him sorted out, he can get used to us without being in so much pain.”

 

Sam nodded. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t like the thought of Harry being in pain either and he didn’t have a better idea on how to handle this sort of situation. He just prayed that it didn’t make everything worse.

 

“Morning.” Bobby greeted before he realised that Harry was sleeping. “How long has he been sleeping there?” He asked in a drastically quietened voice.

 

“Only an hour.” Sam told him, glad for the conversation change. “We both had nightmares and he came down half an hour after I did.”

 

“He’s going to be sore if he stays there like that.” Bobby said.

 

“He’s curled up on the chair.” John said with a smirk.

 

“He’s tiny, is why.” Dean said as he walked in fully dressed. “You alright, Sammy?” He asked when he saw his brother in his pyjamas looking like he hadn’t slept in a week.

 

“Yeah, I’m gonna go grab a shower and then I’ll be back.”

 

Sam left the kitchen and Dean took the seat next to Harry, staring at him as he slept folded into the chair and resting on the table.

 

“Is he alright?” He asked John and Bobby.

 

“Nightmares, the both of them.” John sighed.

 

“Aw, damn it.” Dean sighed. “I didn’t hear Sam. I usually hear him and sit up with him.”

 

“Harry kept him company.”

 

“What was he having nightmares about?” Dean asked looking at Harry’s relaxed face. “I know Sam’s was probably over Jessica.”

 

“Yeah it was and Harry was having nightmares about the truck driver.”

 

“I swear if I ever meet that bastard I’ll make him suffer.” Dean swore.

 

“Was he actually…you know.” Bobby asked uncomfortably.

 

“No.” John shook his head. “Sam was talking to him about it and though he was attacked and the bastard tried to do it, Harry kicked him repeatedly in the face until he was unconscious before running to the Roadhouse.”

 

Dean grinned at that. “Atta boy, Harry.” He said quietly to the sleeping Harry.

 

Bobby snorted. “True Winchester blood in that one. Seems that stubborn streak is just innate in all you boys.”

 

“Go and get breakfast, Dean.” John told him, though he was smiling at their comments to the sleeping Harry.

 

Dean stood up, stretched and snatched the Impala keys.

 

“Anyone got any preference?”

 

“Just get anything and don’t forget to get something for Harry. God knows the kid could use some feeding up.” John told him. “Get him some fruit and such, kids are supposed to eat that stuff.” He added as an afterthought.

 

Dean nodded and walked up the stairs to hammer on the bathroom door to ask Sam what he wanted before he came back down as quietly as he could and left for the nearest diner or café, leaving John and Bobby to drink coffee and talk quietly over Harry’s head.

Only ten minutes after Dean had left the salvage yard, Sam was back in the kitchen after a quick shower and the three men were startled when Harry suddenly jerked awake with a grunt and almost toppled from the chair he was sat in.

 

“Easy, Harry. You okay?” John asked him, trying to steady him by holding the tilting chair and setting it back on four legs.

 

“Where’s Sam?” Harry asked, rubbing his eyes with his hand.

 

“Right here, are you okay?” Sam asked, indescribably pleased that Harry had immediately asked for him.

 

Harry nodded as he looked at Sam who was stood behind him, dressed for the day with a coffee mug in hand. It reminded him that he needed to get dressed himself.

 

“I’m just going to get dressed.”

 

“Dean’s gone to get breakfast, he’ll be back soon. If you wait until after breakfast you can grab a shower.”

 

Harry blinked at that reasoning and then nodded. He accepted the glass of water from Bobby with a quiet ‘thank you’ and Sam sat next to him and they struck up a conversation about animals, which Harry seemed to enjoy a lot as he became very animated and excited. It made John smile to see it. If anyone could have gotten through to Harry and drawn him out of his shell so quickly and easily, it would have been his Sammy.

 

“So you actually know how to ride a horse?” Sam asked in astonishment.

 

Harry nodded with a grin. Of course he hadn’t actually ridden a horse, but then he couldn’t exactly tell them that he’d ridden a hippogriff and a centaur. “Yeah, riding is easy. I’ve done it barebacked several times now.”

 

John almost choked on a mouthful of coffee at the hidden euphemism of that statement and he tried to cover up the fact that he’d inhaled his coffee into his lungs by coughing harshly and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Harry looked at him with such innocent concern as he almost choked, Sam and Bobby laughing at him silently behind Harry’s back, that John berated himself for ever thinking that Harry could have meant that _other_ thing _._

Dean didn’t take too much longer after that debacle before he arrived back with a lot of noise and he grinned as he saw them all waiting.

 

“Here you go, breakfast is served.” He declared as he dumped several large paper bags on the kitchen table.

 

Harry just stared at him and Sam nudged him. “You get used to it after a while, but he’s spent too much time with his car…it’s all those exhaust fumes.”

 

“Shut up, Sammy.” Dean told him easily, but Harry had to smother a chuckle. “Here, this is yours.”

 

Harry took the Styrofoam box and opened it. He didn’t care what he was eating, he was just hungry. He did seem to have a lot of fruit though, in fact he was the only one with any fruit, he smiled at that. He used the little plastic fork to eat happily, drinking his water as he did so, listening to the conversation at the table, but not really joining in.

Their containers were thrown straight into the bin once they were done and Harry was stretching, just about to ask Bobby if he could please have a shower, when John approached him. Harry sucked in a deep breath as he realised exactly what was about to happen.

 

“Come upstairs, Harry. I’ll show you where everything is, then afterwards, we need to talk.”

 

Harry swallowed nervously and he nodded. He’d had a feeling, right from the off, that John wouldn’t let him keep secrets, that they wouldn’t be tolerated and the pit in his belly grew as he realised that it was going to happen today. He was going to be forced into telling some of his darkest secrets, most particularly about the Dursleys and exactly why he didn’t want to go back to school. It was going to be a difficult couple of hours, especially as Sam had told him that John wanted to wrap up his wrists. He wondered how they would all react to seeing his chest and back, the most bruised areas of his body, and the open wound in his one shoulder. It was not going to be a happy or pleasant talk, that he already knew.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Harry had been allowed to shower first because the wrappings that were around his wrists weren’t allowed to get wet. Apparently the tight support bandages were going to help heal his bruises quicker as well as make them feel less painful when he moved them.

 

“Right, now I know that you have other injuries that you’re hiding.” John told him seriously. “Shirt off.”

 

Harry swallowed and his shoulders automatically hunched to protect himself, his bad shoulder twinging painfully with the movement.

 

“It’s alright, Harry. No one here will judge you.” Sam insisted, his face showing nothing but kind and open honesty.

 

Harry took in a deep breath and though he had known that this was coming, he found himself freezing, unable to move.

 

“We just want to help.” Dean told him when Harry still didn’t move.

 

“We know it’s a lot of pressure, but we really can help and we want to help, Harry.” Sam added, trying desperately to support Harry now that this fiasco had started.

 

“It’s just…” Harry trailed off and looked at his hands. “It’s bad.”

 

“We’ve noticed the cuts on your fingers and the bruises at your wrists. We can still see the faint bruise on your face, which was a lot clearer at Ellen’s, and we couldn’t hope to miss the scabs on your lips. We know what’s going on, Harry, so just let us see and we’ll fix you up.” John told him.

 

“I don’t want to.” Harry said quietly.

 

“I know you don’t, but you’re going to.” John said sternly, leaving no room for argument.

 

Harry looked at his knees. He was sat on the settee in the living room cum library and there was a large, very large, first aid kit open on the coffee table. Sam was sat next to him, John was crouched in front of him and Dean was standing behind John while Bobby was on the other settee sorting out dosages of painkillers after Harry had told him that he wasn’t allergic to anything that he knew of.

 

“Shirt off.” John repeated firmly and Harry knew that they weren’t going to give in and the last thing he wanted was to have John wrestle with him and forcibly take his shirt off. He bit his lip and clenched his hands into fists.

 

“You can shout and rage after we’ve patched you up.” Dean promised him. “Hell, I’ll even help you, but first things first, let’s see why you keep touching your fingers to your right side ribs.”

 

Feeling trapped and cornered, Harry carefully took off his jumper, making sure not to expose any part of his skin, and he immediately felt a little relief from the stifling summer heat, before he toyed with the hem of his long sleeved shirt.

 

“Jeez, you must have been melting, dude.” Dean told him, his biceps on clear display thanks to the thin tee-shirt he was wearing.

 

Harry frowned and nibbled his lip. Maybe this would be a good thing after all, once they’d all seen him, he wouldn’t have to continue wearing the jumpers anymore and he wouldn’t feel like he was dying from overheating due to the summer heat. It was a lot hotter here than it was in Britain and he wasn’t used to the dry heat of America at all, let alone while he was layered up and wearing a jumper to keep his scabs and bruises covered.

He took courage from their honesty and their support and he slowly lifted the hem of his shirt and he heard the hisses and the lone curse from Dean as he popped his head out of his shirt and put it in his lap, playing with it so that he didn’t have to look up at anyone.

 

“The people you live with did this to you?” Sam demanded as he brushed his large fingers gently over a sickly greenish-yellow patch of skin on Harry’s left side. It couldn’t even be called a bruise, it was just too big and covered most of Harry’s upper body and all over his left side, right down to his hip and around his front and back.

 

“They’re just bruises, you can’t help bruises.” Harry said angrily as he clenched his hands into his discarded shirt, still not looking up at any of them. He regretted taking his shirt off and he wanted nothing more than to jam it back on and hide.

 

“That isn’t a bruise.” John said as he pressed the tip of his thick, rough finger into a shallow cut on Harry’s collar bone. Petunia had been aiming a slap at his cheek, but he’d ducked and dodged away, her one false, manicured nail had just caught his collarbone and the scab usually came off when he showered, which is why he still had it, but it was clean and healing.

 

“It’s only a little cut.” Harry burst out. “It’ll heal on its own.”

 

“This one won’t.” Dean said from behind him and he pressed his own finger into a ghastly looking cut on Harry’s right shoulder.

 

Harry flinched as it was touched. He thought that that one was left over from the graveyard battle and he shivered. A few of his deeper cuts from the graveyard had yet to heal almost three weeks later. Madam Pomfrey had healed all the cuts and bruises on his front, but he hadn’t told her about the ones on his back. They were some sort of sick punishment to himself for urging Cedric to take the cup with him.

 

“Dad, this one needs stitches.” Dean told John, peering closely at the deep wound.

 

John sighed and stood up, coming to see for himself. Harry wished that he’d either used a glamour to cover the damn things before he’d left Hogwarts or at the very least hidden it better.

 

“It _will_ need stitches, Harry. What did this?”

 

Harry remained silent. He could hardly say that it was likely from a chunk of gravestone that had caught him after Voldemort had blasted it to smithereens after missing his head with the spell.

John sighed as he stared sadly at the state of Harry’s tiny body. He was bruised to hell and back and had small cuts all over him, though the gash on his back seemed to be the worst, he was worried about potential broken ribs. It looked like someone had repeatedly punched or kicked Harry in the chest, any one of a blow like that could cave in a rib.

 

“Sam, get the alcohol.” John said as he came back around to face Harry. “This is going to hurt.”

 

Harry snorted. “Yeah, because I’m not used to that already.” He said sullenly.

 

John’s hand clenched in his anger at the bastards who’d done this to a fourteen year old boy. To _his_ fourteen year old boy. He took the alcohol from Sam and a wad of clean gauze, he tipped the rubbing alcohol onto the gauze and then slapped it over the worst of Harry’s cuts. Except for his shoulders jumping a little at the sudden move and a sharp inhale of surprise, Harry didn’t react at all.

 

“Dude, come on!” Dean said as he ruffled Harry’s hair. “Sammy cries like a baby when he has to be cleaned with alcohol.”

 

“I do not!” Sam denied.

 

“He does. Every time.” Dean whispered loudly to Harry. “I remember one time, he fell over in a parking lot and took the skin off of both his knees and both his palms and when Dad cleaned them off with alcohol he bawled for two hours afterwards!”

 

“I was _four_!” Sam told him angrily.

 

“Details.” Dean told him and he winked at Sam when Harry chuckled at them.

 

John focused on cleaning the wound, rubbing in a circular motion to hopefully get out any and all bacteria before it could fester, though the wound started to bleed quickly as it was cleaned. He used four pads of gauze before he was happy that he’d cleaned every inch of the cut before he moved on to the other cuts, leaving the one he’d just done to air dry for a minute before he directed Sam to take over the cleaning of the smaller cuts and got Dean to help him as he took the threaded needle from Bobby.

 

“This is going to hurt worse, Harry.” John warned.

 

Harry nodded his understanding and Dean walked around the settee and knelt in front of him, holding around his neck and pushing down on his shoulders to keep him still.

 

“Grip your hands into my shirt, Harry.” Dean told him.

 

“What?”

 

“Grab my shirt on either side and clench it. It’s to stop your hands from moving and disturbing the stitches.”

 

Harry nodded slowly, as if he were in a daze, but he did as Dean had told him to and two, tiny hands held him on either side of his body. Dean readied himself and moved his hands slightly to be better able to hold Harry in position before he nodded to his Dad. 

John didn’t give Harry any warning as he carefully pushed the sterilised needle though Harry’s skin and other than hissing loudly through his teeth in pain and flinching, which Dean controlled as best as he could by holding Harry down, Harry didn’t make any sort of fuss. Those tiny hands on his sides however would clench every time the needle was pushed through his skin and Dean tried his best to comfort Harry through the ordeal by talking to him and telling him how well he was doing. Anything to try and make this even the slightest bit more bearable for Harry.

Stitching up the wound in his son’s back slowly, wiping his hands on a towel he had on the floor beside his knee to clean them of blood so that he could do a good enough job, John had plenty of time to think and get angrier at the people who had done this to his boy. He really, really needed a hunt to distract him, otherwise he was going to go and hunt down those people and repay them in kind for what they’d done to Harry, his own son. Mary’s son.

It seemed to take an age for him to put in the stitches to the hideous wound that Harry had suffered and seemed to have been living with for a while. John would never forgive the bastards who’d given such a wound to his son. His son who was timid, shy, about half the height and weight that he should have been and wanted nothing more than to be a vet.

Once he was done and the last stitch had been tied off, John wiped Harry’s shoulder and back of blood and taped a clean square of gauze over the stitched line. He dipped his hands into the bowl of warm water and washed his hands and arms of blood and he determinedly kept his mind blank as he checked on Sam, who was cleaning the little cuts and grazes that littered the length of Harry’s small body while Dean was searching in the first aid boxes for Band-Aids to cover the smaller cuts that Harry had.

If he thought too much about this then he really was going to hunt down the people who had done this to Harry and the people who had allowed this to happen to him too. He didn’t believe that there wasn’t one single person who hadn’t noticed the glaring signs of Harry’s home abuse. He’d noticed the pain and discomfort his son was in from their very first meeting, he refused to believe that there wasn’t one single person who hadn’t noticed, especially as Harry went to a boarding school. Unless the school were abusing Harry too, John’s fist clenched tight. That would explain why Harry didn’t want to go back.

He went back to checking on Harry’s body and he sighed inwardly, he couldn’t do much for the bruising, but he did crouch down in front of his son once again and he checked to make sure that no ribs were broken, but without an x-ray, he wouldn’t be a hundred percent sure, but he couldn’t feel anything that caused alarm bells to ring. There were no sudden dips or bulges, and Harry had no problems breathing or holding a deep breath for several moments when he was instructed to do so, so he was happy to leave Harry’s ribs alone, though how very thin Harry was did concern him. It made him think that it probably wasn’t just physical abuse that Harry had suffered at those people’s hands.

 

“Do those people feed you less than you needed?” He asked as he checked on Harry’s arms for any cuts he or Sam might have missed.

 

“Something like that.” Harry admitted quietly.

 

“Don’t avoid answering the question. What do they do?” John asked. “Be straight up and frank here, Harry.”

 

“They starve me for days on end and lock me up when they’re sick of seeing me.” Harry said angrily. “Is that frank enough for you?”

 

John almost dropped the bottle of alcohol. His free hand clenched so tightly into a fist that his blunt nails dug into his palm and he had to remind himself to breathe.

 

“And the bruises?” Sam, the only one who seemed to be able to speak at the moment, asked gently.

 

“It started when I was really young, I don’t remember how or why, but it started with just smacks or a fist clenching in my hair…it progressed over the years to slaps and shoves and then to punches and the use of objects.”

 

“Objects like what?” Sam asked.

 

Harry shrugged. “A belt, a chair, a frying pan. Anything that came to hand first, really. The day I left it was a glass of water at my head.”

 

“These bruises, how did you get them?” John asked, touching the worst of the bruising at Harry’s ribs.

 

“Dudley, their son. He’s older than me by several years. I’ve been his plaything for so long. He even started playing something he dubbed ‘Harry hunting’ and him and his stupid friends would chase me and beat the shit out of me when they found me.”

 

“How old were you?”

 

Harry shrugged. “I was a little kid when they started doing that, about five or six, and he was a teenager. He was a trained boxer too.”

 

“How old is he now?” John demanded.

 

“He’s just turned twenty-six.” Harry shrugged again.

 

“He’s older than Sam, just a year younger than I am, and he kicked the shit out of you and gave you these bruises?”

 

Harry sighed and played with his fingers. “He’s a waste of space…quite literally.” Harry grinned nastily. “He’s wider across than he is tall. He can’t catch me anymore, he can’t even run. He does like pushing me down the stairs though. He likes catching me off guard when I’m sleeping and he…he gave me those bruises on the same day that I left.”

 

“And his parents?” John asked.

 

“My Mother Lily’s sister, Petunia and her vile Husband, Vernon. They’ve never liked me…they hated it less when they opened the front door to find a fifteen month old me on their doorstep.”

 

“You were left on their doorstep?” Sam asked in disgust.

 

“Yep, Halloween night too and I was wrapped in a single blanket according to them. I’m lucky to have survived the madman and the fire and then being dumped on a doorstep in the cold overnight.”

 

John was coming to understand a lot more about Harry the more he talked about his past and his thoughts on the matter. He obviously had issues and they all seemed to stem from his supposed Aunt, Uncle and cousin. It wasn’t any wonder that Harry didn’t see those people as his family and didn’t want to go back to them or to his school for that matter, the school which had done nothing about the abuse and would apparently send him straight back to the people who had hurt him and treated him so badly for all these years.

 

“Get these down you.” Bobby said as he handed over a glass of water and a handful of pills. “It’s dead on the hour, once you get those down you, you might feel drowsy, so if you need to sleep, sleep. I’ll wake you up in time for the next dose.”

 

“I don’t need them.” Harry said stubbornly.

 

“I don’t care, you’ll take them and you’ll keep taking them for today at least, then we’ll see about tomorrow.” Bobby told him.

 

John watched as Harry looked at the palmful of pills before he pouted at them as if they had done him a personal wrong. All four of them smiled as they watched him, at least until he threw every single pill into his mouth at once and gulped down the water until they were all gone.

John packed up the medical supplies and Dean went to tip away the bowl of bloodied water and he took the bloodied towels with him. Sam was distracting Harry so easily it was as if they had known each other for years instead of just a day. They were talking about animals again, a topic that John was rapidly understanding was one of Harry’s favourites as he knew a hell of a lot about them. They were talking about something called Hedwig, which seemed to make Harry incredibly happy.

 

“What’s a Hedwig?” Dean asked as he came back into the room.

 

“Harry’s pet.” Sam said with a secret grin at Harry, who chuckled.

 

“Who calls their pet Hedwig?” Dean asked as he shoved Sam as he walked past.

 

“Hedwig’s special.” Harry said with so much love John might have thought that Hedwig was a person and not an animal.

 

“Oh yeah, is it a she?” Dean asked with a wink and Harry cocked his head to the side.

 

“Yeah, she is.”

 

“You know, you shouldn’t substitute animals for people. It’s not right.”

 

“Dean!” Sam chastised.

 

“Animals have never beaten or starved me.” Harry answered before taking another drink of water, looking consideringly into the glass as he mulled over his thoughts before voicing them. “I like animals more than people.” He said easily and the simplicity of that statement saddened them all.

 

“Why don’t you tell Dean what Hedwig is, Harry?” Sam encouraged with a smile that was forced.

 

Harry smiled gently. “She’s an owl. I’ve had her for almost four years now.”

 

“An owl?” John asked incredulously.

 

Harry nodded. “A snowy owl. She likes following me around.”

 

“Where is she now?” Dean asked him curiously.

 

“She’ll be around.” Harry nodded. “Probably hunting. I let her fly free back in London, so it’ll take her a while to catch up to me, but she always does.”

 

“Is she trained like a carrier pigeon?” Bobby asked. “She carry letters and messages?”

 

Harry nodded. “I gave her a letter the day I let her go, asking my Dad’s oldest friends why they’d never told me that I was a surrogate baby or that I had two middle names and not just one. I’m still waiting for their reply.”

 

“That must be a hell of an expensive bird. Training like that is unheard of. Are you sure she can find you?”

 

Harry nodded seriously. If Hedwig could find Sirius every time without fail when he was on the run and constantly moving around, she could find him here in America.

 

“She did cost a lot of money, but she’s worth it. She was my first ever friend.”

 

“What about school?” Dean asked.

 

Harry looked away and sighed. “No one ever really bothered with me in school. Who wants to be friends with the short, skinny kid wearing baggy clothes that were over a decade old, who never opened his mouth and spent most of his time hiding in a small corner of the playground or escaping to the library? Not to mention that all the kids around the neighbourhood I grew up in were too afraid of Dudley and his gang to come near me. They told all the other kids what would happen to them if they so much as looked at me. Dudley would beat them up too if he saw anyone talking to me so I was always alone.”

 

“Why didn’t anyone do anything about him?” Sam asked.

 

Harry scoffed. “He was the perfect child, the apple of his parents’ eye, of course it couldn’t be him doing all those naughty things, not their precious son. No, it was much easier to blame their freak of a nephew who no one went near because he was deranged and abnormal. They spread so many lies about me that even they started believing in them themselves. They even told the neighbours that the school I actually went to was a secure centre for incurably criminal boys.”

 

Dean laughed at that. “You? Incurably criminal?” He asked with a grin. “I’ve spent a day with you and I know that’s not true.”

 

“Everyone believed it and they started treating me like a criminal, one woman even called the police because I passed in front of her garden gate once. They all believed that I was mentally subnormal and that I was aggressively violent. Hedwig was the only one who would even come near me in the summer.”

 

“What about at the boarding school, away from them?” Sam asked.

 

Harry looked down at his lap and he smiled. “I have two best friends. Ron and Hermione, though…though they haven’t actually bothered to contact me at all this summer. They usually do, but this summer is different and I’m worried about what it means.”

 

“I’m sure it’s nothing, Harry.” Sam tried to sooth him.

 

Harry nodded, but he wasn’t convinced. Ron had turned on him during the tournament and had only come back around once he’d beaten the first task…he’d only come back around once the rest of the school had and though Hermione had been there for him throughout, the news that Cedric was dead and Voldemort was back and after his head was a lot to take in. Could he really blame her if she had decided it was safer to distance herself from him?

 

He sighed. “I hope so, otherwise the only friend I have is an owl who follows me around.”

 

Harry touched his wrapped ribs and adjusted the bandages.

 

“Can I put my shirt back on, please?” He asked quietly, wanting the security of having something to hide himself in.

 

“Yes, of course.” Sam told him.

 

Harry almost jumped back into the long sleeved shirt and he wrapped his arms around himself.

 

“How far you got into that book?” Bobby asked him and Harry smiled at the attempt to make him more comfortable and to change the subject. He accepted the life line and fumbled for his backpack to get the ancient book out carefully, along with his spare notebook.

 

“Really well! I still can’t understand some words, I’ve only been learning Latin for four years and some of the words are ancient! So ancient that they’ve fallen out of modern use. I can guess, but I want to make sure that I have them right. Can you help me please, Mister Bobby?”

 

Dean snorted in amusement and Harry ducked his head and frowned at his hands self-consciously, holding the book in his lap.

 

“Shut up, idjit.” Bobby slapped Dean’s head as he walked past and sat next to Harry. “Show me which words you need help with. God knows it’ll do me some good to speak with someone who has a brain!”

 

Harry smiled at his lap before he set his notebook and the book up on the coffee table and showed Bobby all of the words that he was having difficulty with. With some of them, he’d guessed correctly, on others he’d mistranslated spectacularly, but Bobby patiently helped him through the translations and pointed out exactly where he’d gone wrong and why.

 

“Why do you have these sorts of books?” Harry questioned a while later, after Bobby had corrected him again. “Why do you have books that go into detail about the different rituals that ancient people used to ward off their ideals of supposed evil?”

 

Harry couldn’t help but notice that John, Dean and Sam, who had all stayed in the room with him and Bobby, all tensed up. All three of them. He pretended not to notice as he made a show of reading the next page of the book. 

 

“You don’t believe that this sort of evil could have existed?” Bobby questioned him and Harry thought about that question hard before he looked up to answer, already shaking his head.

 

“No. I believe that they _thought_ that there was evil around them, but that they didn’t know what it was or how to label it, so they slapped this word, kakodaimon, on everything. It’s ancient Greek again, but to my understanding it translates to evil or malevolent spirit. A demon. If you acted out of the norm, you were a demon, if you had seizures or a headache, you were a demon, if you had nightmares or even a nosebleed, then you were a demon.” Harry said as he frowned at the book in his lap as he read on a little further, the book suddenly reverting back to Latin. “Any murder or crime, it was the work of demons because they just didn’t know what else to call it. Humans couldn’t possibly be that evil, could they? These horrific deeds couldn’t possibly have been done by humans. They scapegoated everyone they could, gave them a free pass to act how they wanted as long as they blamed demon possession afterwards. All ancient texts are fraught with legends of demons and spirits and witches, just to scapegoat human behaviour. I mean, take the witch burnings for example. Someone got it into their head that supposed witchcraft was linked to the devil and they justified killing all of those people because they decreed that witchcraft went hand in hand with devil worship, which was against the ten commandments. They believed that these people were holding shared satanic parties in which they opened the realms of the supernatural by dancing naked and engaging in cannibalistic infanticide. It’s ridiculous! All those innocent people were tortured and killed over what? Because some people thought that they were possessed by demons or were using supernatural powers for evil misdeeds and eating babies? There are even accounts of people being killed on the accusation of witchcraft because of bad weather!”

 

Harry sighed and tried to get a handle on himself. The witch burnings had been one of the first things he’d read about after learning that he was a wizard. He’d found Hedwig’s name in the same book, but reading about the witch trials from the view of real witches and wizards, it soured something inside him. To know that most of the real witches and wizards had gotten away and that the only people who had died had been innocent Muggles who’s neighbour or enemy had accused of witchcraft. His fist clenched.

 

“The thought of hunting something like that.” Harry continued, his anger flaring again. “All those innocent people, killed for no reason other than they were accused and tried unfairly and lethally of something so ridiculous as witchcraft just because some idiot somewhere couldn’t rationally understand what he was actually seeing. It makes bile burn in my throat. That someone could be so hateful, so prejudiced against something as to hunt it in such a way.”

 

“Some things need killing.” Dean told him simply and Harry’s head snapped to him, a look of abject horror on his face.

 

“What?” He asked breathlessly.

 

“What he means is that, maybe, throughout history, there was someone who was caught eating a baby or something similar.” Sam tried to explain quickly. “And that’s how it came to be associated with witchcraft. There would be no excuse for doing something like that, so to Dean’s reasoning, that person should be killed for their crimes, like murderers and paedophiles.”

 

Harry calmed himself down and he nodded. “Maybe. I couldn’t imagine anyone eating a baby, it’s inconceivable to me. I suppose they’d have serious problems, possibly mental health issues. I can understand how, in that sort of rare situation, it would be a shoot first kind of thing. The horror of seeing something like that would likely freeze the rational mind and the subconscious mind would take over and act on instinct and in that situation it would be to protect oneself from the horror in front of them.”

 

“You sure you’re fourteen?” Bobby asked him with a nudge.

 

Harry smiled. “I’m fifteen next month if that helps.”

 

“It doesn’t.” Bobby answered and Harry laughed.

 

“I just…I really don’t like discrimination for the sake of discrimination. You know, the whole tarring everyone with the same brush and holding a whole group accountable for one person’s actions. It’s always the same. Someone murders someone else and because of it, the entire family is vilified and attacked. Just because one of them is evil, doesn’t mean they all are.”

 

“You’re too smart for your own good.” Bobby told him. “At least I know why those two are so stupid.” He added, nodding to Sam and Dean.

 

“Yeah? Well I took all the good looks.” Was Dean’s come back and Harry laughed.

 

“Does that mean Sam took all the height?” Harry asked.

 

“Looking at you, he must have.” Dean answered and Harry laughed again.

 

“Right, I’m gonna get lunch on.”

 

“Do you want any help?” Harry asked politely.

 

“In all my years knowing those three, ain’t one of them ever asked if I wanted help.” Bobby answered.

 

“That’s because you know we’d poison ourselves.” John said with a soft grin.

 

“Damn right, and I ain’t starting now. You stay here and read your animal books.”

 

“I’m a good cook.” Harry protested.

 

“How do you know how to cook?” Dean demanded.

 

“We had this argument this morning.” Sam said with a grin at Harry.

 

Harry nodded and he bit his lip. He made a decision and looked up, staring at them all head on as best as he could.

 

“I’ve been cooking for years.” He said as strongly as he could. “Those people made me cook for them. It started when I was really young, back then I had to stand on a chair to reach the top of the cooker.”

 

The effect was almost instantaneous as Harry watched his brothers and his Father all go curiously blank, as if they’d gone into a headspace where there was only white noise.

 

“You definitely ain’t cooking when I’m around.” Bobby said before he went into the kitchen and Harry felt sort of…part disappointed that he couldn’t prove himself and part relieved that he wasn’t going to be forced to cook like he had been at the Dursleys. It felt nice to have someone cook for him for a change. It was different at Hogwarts because of the house elves. The only person who’d ever cooked for him before had been Mrs Weasley and he saw her as close to a Mother as he was ever going to get.

 

John came and sat next to him and a heavy hand was placed on his good shoulder. It squeezed tight for a moment before it just rested, comfortingly and Harry really, really liked it being there.

 

“I take it they didn’t take the time to teach you how to actually cook first.” John growled in that rough, gruff voice of his that Harry was coming to associate with John.

 

Harry shook his head. “No, I burnt myself a lot and if I burnt or undercooked the food I’d get beaten. It was sort of learn how to do it properly as quickly as possible as a way of survivalism.”

 

“I should have kept up with James and Lily. I should have followed up with you.”

 

“You didn’t know.” Harry told him gently. “You didn’t know that this was going to happen, you didn’t even know those people or how they’d behave or that my Mum and Dad were dead.”

 

“If I’d just sent a letter, or even went to collect the old mail from the house once in a while…”

 

“It isn’t your fault.” Harry said. “What happened, has happened. There’s no guarantee that even if you’d known about me that you’d have known that my parents had died and I’d been sent to live with _them_ because I didn’t know about you. I don’t blame anyone for what happened to me.”

 

“You should be blaming them!” Dean told him angrily.

 

Harry sighed and looked down at his hands in his lap.

 

“You don’t. You’re so forgiving that you really don’t blame them for what they’ve done to you.” Sam said in a sort of shock.

 

Harry smiled sadly. “I was all but thrust onto them. They never wanted another child, they never wanted anything to do with me and they made sure that I knew it. There was a time when I loved them regardless, when I would have done anything, _anything_ , for some positive acknowledgement, but by the time that I was eight, maybe nine, I came to the realisation that that was never going to happen. They hated me being there, denied me a space in their family, in their house and lives so completely and so obviously that I couldn’t hope to misconstrue their contempt of me. I don’t blame them for that, I wasn’t even related to them, not really, and they were obligated to take me in, but I fully realise that there was absolutely no need to…to hurt me the way that they did or to treat me the way that they did.”

 

“You’re damn right they didn’t have a right to treat you like that.” Dean burst out angrily. “If I ever met them I’d rip their lungs out!”

 

Harry had to smile at that as he realised that what he was feeling right now, it was the protection and the safety of having a brother to look out for him, someone he could rely on. He’d never felt anything like it before. It felt really nice and if he wasn’t careful, then he’d find himself getting addicted to it very quickly and very easily. It was a nice thought, one that he held onto tight. He liked having brothers, he liked having a family to call his own. He didn’t think he could leave now, even if he tried to. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to get to know his new found family and he wanted to stay with them for as long as they wanted him.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This will be my last update until the New Year. There are a few more updates for the rest of this year, but they are not scheduled for this fic, lovelies. So if you aren’t reading any of my other fics, then I will be seeing you soon.
> 
> I think this is all I need to tell you lovelies for now. Come join me on Facebook under the name Star Mass (FB wouldn’t let me have StarLight or Massacre as a name), but other than that, I’ll be back in the New Year, lovelies, see you soon,
> 
> StarLight Massacre. X


	4. Friction

_ Last Time _

__

_Harry had to smile at that as he realised that what he was feeling right now, it was the protection and the safety of having a brother to look out for him, someone he could rely on. He’d never felt anything like it before. It felt really nice and if he wasn’t careful, then he’d find himself getting addicted to it very quickly and very easily. It was a nice thought, one that he held onto tight. He liked having brothers, he liked having a family to call his own. He didn’t think he could leave now, even if he tried to. He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to get to know his new found family and he wanted to stay with them for as long as they wanted him._

 

Chapter Four – Friction

 

The tablets that Bobby kept giving to him and insisting that he take regularly were making him really drowsy and sleepy. He was more often than not tucked up on the sofa with a blanket that was repeatedly tucked around him if he so much as shifted under it, sleeping off the effects of the strong painkillers. He’d never been allowed to have any painkillers before, so the strong ones he was being given affected him so much more than they would have had he actually taken so much as a paracetamol tablet with the Dursleys.

A heavy hand would jerk him from his sleep at five-ish in the afternoon and he’d peer blearily up at John who would smile at him and tell him that it was time to eat. He’d wake up a little over dinner and afterwards he’d translate more of the book that Bobby had given to him or he’d do some more research on creatures or he’d be snatched by Dean to watch a film with him.

He’d had several more nightmares, his wrappings were changed daily as John checked on the stitches in his back and he’d gotten a little more used to the four men. It wasn’t quite so awkward anymore and as the end of his first week with his biological Father and two older brothers dawned, he found that he’d stopped flinching when one of them raised a hand to scratch their nose or to tug at their hair.

They’d noticed too, Harry guessed, as they had been very careful and deliberate around him, but since he’d stopped his flinching, they’d stopped tiptoeing around him quite so much, though they were still very gentle with him. Much gentler than they were used to being he reckoned, from the awkward nature of their conversations and actions. He only needed to observe how they acted and spoke to one another to discern that how they treated him was different, that they took more care with how they spoke to him and were very aware of what they were saying and how they were acting.

He was caught in the grips of yet another nightmare when a careful hand woke him. He shot up, his heart racing and his breathing stuttered, looking around fearfully.

 

“Are they here?” He asked sleepily, still caught up with his nightmare.

 

“No, Harry. No one is here.” Sam replied softly, patiently.

 

Harry panted hard, still panicking and he tried to catch his breath.

 

“Just breathe through it, Harry. You’re alright, you’re safe here.” Sam insisted strongly and calmly.

 

Harry surged up and he wrapped his skinny arms around Sam’s neck and he clung onto him. After a moment of surprised pause, Sam wrapped his arms around Harry’s back, taking care with his horrific bruising and his stitches and hugged him back as Harry panted against his neck, trying to calm himself down.

 

“Shh, it’s alright. It was just a dream.” Sam soothed him.

 

Harry shook his head. “Wasn’t a dream.” He mumbled. “It was a memory.” He admitted.

 

Sam’s jaw clenched and he made absolutely sure that he didn’t convey his anger through his body as he calmed Harry down. It was just lucky that he’d gotten up to take a piss and he’d decided to come down to check on Harry before going back to bed. He’d had a feeling that Harry needed him, so he’d come down to check and Harry _had_ needed him.

Their Dad had decided to leave Harry on the settee where he’d fallen asleep instead of waking him up to go to bed and now Sam wondered if that was such a good idea as he watched his younger brother peer around carefully, looking for intruders or for the object of his nightmare, what Sam assumed was his relatives.

Sam stroked Harry’s unruly, messy, curly hair and just held him.

 

“Do you think you can go back to sleep, or do you want me to stay down here.”

 

Harry averted his gaze and Sam knew then, almost immediately, that what Harry actually wanted, he didn’t feel comfortable asking for. They were getting better and Harry had stopped flinching and cowering if one of them moved too suddenly near him, but they still had a long way to go yet.

 

“I can’t help you with what you want if you don’t tell me what it is you actually want in the first place.” He coaxed gently.

 

Harry just twisted his fingers uncomfortably and Sam tried to think of what he would have wanted when he was around Harry’s age and he’d had a bad nightmare. It was difficult as their situations were completely different and he had never been abused, but when he’d been little and their Dad had been gone, he’d always crawled into Dean’s bed. He’d always sought out the protection of his older brother to use against his nightmares.

 

“You want to sleep, but you don’t want to be alone?” He hedged.

 

Harry just nodded and Sam smiled at the small show of trust.

 

“Come on. You can stay with me.”

 

“I don’t want to be a bother.”

 

“You aren’t. I wouldn’t have offered otherwise, Harry. You’re my brother and I want to look after you and I want to help make you feel better, if that means that you have to put up with my elbows and Dean’s strange grunting and mumbling to help you sleep more peacefully, then so be it.”

 

Sam got Harry up the stairs and into his bed, scooting him against the wall and then lying in front of him. Dean had always told him that he was always to be against the wall to protect him from anything that came through the door. Their Dad’s bed was always the one nearest the door and his and Dean’s bed had always been the one against the wall and Dean had always slept in front of him like a shield. It was strange how he was now doing the same for Harry. How protecting him, shielding him like this came as second nature to him when he’d never done it before.

He fell asleep with a sleeping Harry pressed close to his chest. It felt nice to be the big brother for once and though it had only been a week, Harry was definitely getting closer to them all, to himself in particular. Harry was still wary around their Dad and Bobby, but Dean was definitely forcing himself through the icy barrier by sitting with Harry for hours on end and watching movies with him, quoting the lines and making Harry laugh.

But still, it was him who Harry turned to when he had a bad dream, it was him who Harry looked for when he was feeling unsettled and wanted some reassurance. It had to have been from their first night together, when he’d taken the plunge and shown some trust in Harry first, before anyone else, and he had told him about Jess. There was nothing else that stuck out really that would have made Harry seek him out in particular, but he was glad. Harry needed someone to talk to, to help him through the horrific memories of his past. Sam just wanted to help his little brother, even if it meant sleeping in the same bed with Harry pressed close to him. He didn’t care what he had to do, he’d do it in a heartbeat and if there was any way that he could take the pain away from Harry, he’d gladly do that too.

Of course being startled awake at day break by their Dad bursting into the room, ordering them awake because Harry was missing was a very disorientating, alarming experience.

 

“Uh? Was ‘appening?” Dean asked sleepily, sat up, knife in hand as he brandished it outwards towards their Dad.

 

Of course by this point their Father had seen that Harry was cowering behind Sam, having been startled awake and then terrified by all the noise.

 

“Nothing, false alarm.” John grumbled uncomfortably.

 

Dean groaned and he let himself fall back onto his mattress, shoving his knife back under his pillow. Sam followed Dean’s lead and he fell back to his mattress, hoping for another hour or so of sleep, but Harry was now wide awake, his body thrumming with adrenaline, and he knew that he’d never be able to get back to sleep now, so he slipped carefully out of the bed and he followed John’s footsteps down the stairs.

 

“I take it you found him?” Bobby asked.

 

“In bed with Sam.” Harry heard John answer with a sigh. “Why didn’t I think to check their room first, before I went storming in? I frightened him half to death.”

 

“I’m okay.” Harry said with a sleepy, lopsided smile.

 

“I saw you gone and I just panicked.” John admitted and Harry could see how unhappy he was with saying it, even as he did the now very familiar once over with his eyes, visually checking him over.

 

Harry smiled. “I was the one who came here, remember. I like it here, I like all of you. I’m not going to run away in the middle of the night.”

 

Bobby and John shared a look and Harry frowned, wondering what on Earth they could possibly be thinking. Surely they didn’t expect him to be kidnapped in the night from under their very noses, did they?

 

“What?” He asked as he looked at them. “Is there something going on that I should know about?”

 

“No, nothing.” John said immediately.

 

“For some strange reason, I don’t actually believe you.” Harry said, but he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. All of us have secrets and some of those secrets shouldn’t be shared.”

 

Harry lost himself in thought, gazing at a section of wall without really seeing it as he thought to the Dursleys, to Voldemort’s rebirth and the distance his friends had put between them at the end of the school year. He thought of Cedric’s death and Sirius, his Father’s oldest friend who hadn’t once mentioned that he’d been a surrogate baby and had a living family in America. He wanted to know why. He should have been _told_ about it!

He ground his teeth together and he clenched his fists and that was when John touched his back, between his shoulder blades and steered him to the kitchen. After a small flinch at the suddenness of the touch, Harry allowed himself to be led into the kitchen and he sat down heavily.

 

“Why are you angry?” John asked him.

 

“Because those damn people didn’t tell me about you!” Harry hissed. “How could they keep something like that from me?! They must have thought that I’d never find out on my own, which makes it all the worse.”

 

Harry didn’t voice what he really thought…that they’d never really expected him to defeat Voldemort on his own, a mere fourteen year old boy. They hadn’t expected him to live long enough to find out about his surrogacy or his real Father and John himself had said that he hadn’t thought about James or Lily since his Wife had died. No one would have come looking for him and if he’d done as he was told and not gone to Gringotts that day…then maybe he would never have found out about his real family either.

He dropped his head into his hands, his elbows propped up on the table as he hid his face from the two men watching him. Perhaps it had been a mistake sending Hedwig to Sirius, it had been over a week since he’d sent her off and she hadn’t returned yet, maybe it would have been better if he’d sent a postal owl and kept Hedwig with him, she was his first ever friend and if Ron had turned on him again, and taken Hermione with him this time, then she was in fact his only friend.

A glass of orange juice was placed in front of him, along with a small cap full of the pills that he needed to take and Harry sighed, automatically reaching to touch the stitched wound in his back. It was getting better and the pain was nowhere near what it had been when he’d been walking around with it open and untreated, but John and Bobby both insisted that he still had to take the pressed powder tablets and liquid capsules that made him sleepy and drowsy.

He was watched like a hawk as he threw all of the pills into his mouth at once and then gulped them down with the entire glass of juice. Bobby topped up his glass for him and then he was left alone as the two older men started talking about tools, cars and car parts that sounded completely foreign and alien to Harry, and thus went completely over his head.

Sam was the first of his brothers to get up over an hour later and he happily accepted the coffee handed to him by John and he sat right beside Harry, who hadn’t felt like doing much of anything as he brooded and fumed silently to himself.

 

“Are you okay, Harry?” Sam asked in clear concern.

 

“Fine.” Harry grunted.

 

“You don’t sound fine.”

 

“Well I am!” Harry all but hissed.

 

“Harry, if you…”

 

“Sam.” John cut in, a clear warning in his voice.

 

As soon as John had reprimanded Sam, Harry found himself with a sullen, brooding buddy as Sam clenched his body and silently fumed next to him.

 

“They’re like two peas in a pod.” Bobby chuckled to himself.

 

“Who killed whose dog?” Dean asked as he waltzed into the kitchen and caught sight of them both.

 

Harry and Sam just glared at him, unknown to them, they had exactly the same expression on their faces.

 

“Now that’s creepy.” Dean told them, pointing the car keys in his hand at the both of them. “Don’t start mimicking Sam, Harry. I have all the bitch I can handle from Sam alone, I can’t handle it if you start bitch facing me too.”

 

Harry pouted and looked down at the table. Dean ruffled his hair.

 

“That’s more like it, you look cuter when you’re all pouty.”

 

Harry swatted away his hands and went back to glaring, biting his tongue to stop the torrent of words that wanted to fall out of his mouth.

 

“Go and get breakfast before you end up six feet under, you idjit.” Bobby told him.

 

“Alright, alright.” Dean conceded and he had a huge grin on his face. “I told you that sleeping together would only lead to heartbreak!” Was his parting shot as he left.

 

Sam groaned and put his head in his hands.

 

“What does he mean?” Harry asked, still angry, but now mostly curious too.

 

“Nothing, ignore him.” John said quickly and Harry looked at John, before looking back at the door.

 

He dashed out, forced his battered trainers onto his feet and darted out of the front door. He caught up to Dean just as he was starting the engine and he climbed into the car beside him, closing the door lightly.

 

“You want to come for a ride?” Dean asked him, slightly surprised at the sudden appearance of his youngest brother.

 

Harry nodded his head.

 

“Get your seatbelt on.” Dean told him.

 

Harry turned and grabbed the seatbelt, clicking it into the lock before looking back at Dean, who started the car and started manoeuvring them over the gravel.

 

“You’re still in your pyjamas.”

 

Harry looked down at himself and shrugged. “They’re only jogging bottoms and a long sleeved shirt, no one will know they’re pyjamas.”

 

“You need to get away from Sam and his constant mothering?” Dean asked with a smirk as he drove out of the scrap yard. “He never lets anything drop and he’s always pestering.”

 

“I don’t mind. Most of the time.” Harry said quietly. “But sometimes I just want…I want…”

 

“You want to be left the hell alone?” Dean filled in for him and Harry grinned, nodding.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Yeah, well come to me next time, not Sam. I won’t constantly bug you about your feelings or whatever and I’ll leave you to get on with it. You’ve survived this long without telling anyone continuously how you’re feeling every five minutes, right?”

 

Harry nodded and he settled back against the soft leather.

 

“Why does me sleeping with Sam lead to heartbreak?” He asked curiously as Dean stopped at a set of lights.

 

“Dude, don’t ask that!” Dean told him, looking like a deer in the headlights.

 

“You’re the one who said it!” Harry pointed out with a frown. “Did I do something wrong?”

 

“God, no.” Dean replied, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else and he drove off again, looking obsessively at the road.

 

“Is it wrong for me to sleep with Sam?” Harry tried.

 

Dean pulled a face. “Don’t say it like that.”

 

“Like what?” Harry demanded, getting more and more confused by the minute.

 

“Like that!” Dean insisted.

 

“Would it be better if I slept with you instead?” Harry asked.

 

Dean almost swerved the car into oncoming traffic. “Dude, stop!”

 

“I don’t understand!” Harry said, biting his lip nervously. “It was only because I was having nightmares.”

 

“That’s fine, just stop saying it like that.” Dean insisted.

 

“You’re the one who said it like that in the first place!”

 

“Yeah and now I’m thoroughly regretting it!”

 

“But what does it mean?” Harry asked.

 

“Nothing. I’ll tell you when you’re older.” Dean said firmly.

 

Harry bit his lip and nibbled on it, wondering if he should press his luck or not, but he still wasn’t all that comfortable with any of these new people, so he blew out a breath and settled down.

 

“Okay, but I’m going to hold you to that.” He insisted and he actually saw Dean blowing out a relieved breath of his own. “How old do I have to be to know what it means?”

 

“Eighteen.” Dean replied promptly.

 

“That’s three years away!” Harry replied, completely appalled.

 

“Hopefully you’ll have forgotten about it by then.” Dean insisted.

 

Harry grinned. “Nuh-uh. I’m going to write it down so I remember to ask you.”

 

“Dude, that’s not fair!” Dean told him and Harry laughed.

 

“You said I could ask when I was eighteen, so I’m going to ask when I’m eighteen. If I don’t get Sam to crack first.”

 

“Good luck with that, Sammy’s more interested in preserving your innocence than anyone else.”

 

“What does that mean, preserving my innocence?”

 

“Fuck it!” Dean cursed. “Just forget I mentioned anything and keep that one for when you’re eighteen too.”

 

“What if I ask Bobby? Will he tell me what it means?”

 

“Hell no.” Dean actually laughed at that. “Him and Dad are more inept at this than I am.”

 

“So Sam’s my best bet?”

 

“You’re not going to drop this, are you?”

 

Harry shook his head. “I want to know what it means.”

 

“You’ll find out…when you’re eighteen.” Dean told him as he pulled into a diner. “Do you want to come in with me?”

 

Harry nodded his head.

 

“Then don’t mention any of this inside and stay close, alright?”

 

Harry nodded again and climbed out of the car, making sure to shut the door carefully as Sam had told him that Dean loved his car and he didn’t want to be in his brother’s bad books for slamming the car door too hard.

He trotted to Dean’s side and stayed close as they went inside and Dean gave their usual breakfast order to the waitress, stipulating that it was to go.

Harry looked around curiously, at the strange looking diner, all the people and the strange foods that were actually being ordered for breakfast. It was all fascinating to him.

 

“I put some extra fruit and another bottle of juice in your order for your little one, free of charge.” The kindly looking waitress told Dean with an adoring smile to Harry, who smiled back shyly as she handed Dean’s order to him in a large paper bag.

 

Dean looked like he was going to have a fit where he stood. Harry grinned evilly.

 

“Thank you very much. My Daddy always forgets to get me extra juice.” Harry told the woman, who all but melted in her shoes and gave him a soppy, simpering smile.

 

“You’re so adorable, dear! You must be so proud of him, he’s so polite!”

 

“My Daddy’s a good man.” Harry told her, trying to keep himself as serious as he could when all he wanted to do was burst out laughing. He might have already ruptured several ribs thus far.

 

Dean spun him around and pushed him at the door. “Get in the car!” He ordered as Harry all but cackled, losing the fight against his laughter as he left the diner and the curious waitress who didn’t know what she’d said or done wrong.

 

He made it back to the car with Dean shadowing him and he climbed in, wiping his eyes of the tears that wouldn’t stop falling.

 

“Hold this.” Dean said shortly, in a foul mood and Harry laughed all over again as he clutched at the large paper bag and listened to Dean’s muttering about fathering babies and having teenaged sons and how he was too young to have Harry for a son.

 

He was still muttering when they arrived back at Bobby’s and Harry was still laughing hard enough to have tears streaming down his face.

 

“What happened? Are you okay?” Sam asked him concernedly as he walked into the kitchen with the paper bag, misunderstanding the tears on his cheeks.

 

Harry started laughing all over again and he put the bag on the table and all but collapsed into a chair still laughing as Dean came striding in, in a bad mood.

 

“He is not coming on the breakfast run with me again!” He told the room at large and Harry roared with laughter, wiping his eyes with the backs of his hands as he tried to calm himself.

 

“What happened?” John asked, looking on with a smile as Harry had a giggle fit.

 

“Nothing!” Dean insisted quickly. “But he’s not allowed outside of this house ever again.”

 

Harry chuckled a bit and took a few deep breaths, calming himself as he grinned widely.

 

“The nice waitress gave me extra fruit and juice for free.” Harry said happily as he took the Styrofoam box of food from John and the two bottles of juice and the Styrofoam box of fruit that had black marker on the top spelling out ‘for the little cutie.’

 

“Little cutie?” John questioned as he read the top of the box.

 

Harry grinned. “I’m very used to people thinking that I’m much younger than I am because I’m so short. If it gets me free stuff, I don’t mind so much.”

 

“Not another word.” Dean warned him and Harry set off laughing again.

 

“What happened?” Sam asked, looking happier himself as he grinned with Harry.

 

“She thought that…”

 

“I won’t answer your questions at eighteen!” Dean threatened him.

 

Harry pouted.

 

“I’ll answer any questions you have at eighteen.” Sam insisted and Harry grinned.

 

“She thought that Dean was my Dad.” He giggled and Dean groaned and slammed his head into the table top. “She praised him on how polite and well-mannered I was and she said he was a good Dad.” Harry laughed again.

 

Sam snorted with laughter and Dean picked himself up.

 

“The little shit egged her on too!” He complained. “‘My Daddy’s a good man, he likes me eating lots of fruit.’” He mimicked and Harry burst out laughing again. “He’s staying here next time.”

 

“Your face was a picture.” Harry said with a massive grin.

 

“That thing is evil.” Dean told John, pointing to Harry, who wiped his eyes again and unscrewed his first bottle of juice and took a sip so that he could calm down.

 

“I got free stuff, didn’t I?” Harry asked happily.

 

“You don’t deserve it at my expense.” Dean complained.

 

“Eat your food, the both of you.” John told them and Harry, still giggling a little, dug into his breakfast with relish while Dean moodily stabbed at his own.

 

The free fruit tasted extra sweet because of how he’d gotten it and he wiped the pineapple juice from his mouth and tried not to laugh at the look on Dean’s face.

He was in a much better mood than he’d been when he’d woken up and he decided that today he was going to go outside in the sun for a bit. He got changed into the only pair of shorts he had and one of his smaller tee shirts, it showed nearly every half healed cut and bruise that he had, but it was an incredibly warm day and he was going to be outside and after what had happened on his second day here, it wasn’t like John, Bobby, Dean and Sam hadn’t seen every bump and mark that he had on him anyway.

He made his way outside and he wandered a little, smiling as the sun warmed his skin. It did not take long for someone to join him and when he next looked around, John was sat on the porch, cleaning an array of guns. Harry hadn’t plucked up the courage to ask him why he had so many guns yet.

Dean joined them not half an hour later as he crawled under the hood of the car and he was covered in grease and oil up to his elbows when Harry next looked at him as he wandered around the grassy outer areas of Bobby’s front driveway, digging for bugs and other animals that he could look over.

By the time he turned back around, Bobby and Sam had joined John and Dean and Harry grinned. He liked it here, he really did and he felt so safe and happy as he found a butterfly on a patch of wildflowers and he picked it up on his finger, ever so gently, looking it over with his eyes, taking in its pattern and beautiful colours.

 

“Why does it stay on you?” Sam asked as he wandered close by. “Every time I go near butterflies they dart off. It doesn’t even seem bothered by you.”

 

“He’s not bothered by me.” Harry said with a smile. “He can tell that I don’t mean him any harm so he’s happy to let me handle him. It would be easier if I had sugar water, they like sugar water, but he can sense that I’m not going to squash him or pull his wings off because I’m not some sick bastard who would harm a defenceless animal that’s as beautiful as he is.”

 

“What breed is he?” Sam asked curiously.

 

“Eastern tailed blue.” Harry replied as he tilted his finger to check underneath the butterfly’s body. “In perfect health and in his prime too.”

 

Harry moved his hand out and the butterfly flew off. Harry watched him until he couldn’t see him anymore before he turned to look all the way up to Sam.

 

“I did say I liked animals more than people, Sam. I know a lot about animals, but people always confuse me.”

 

“It’s no wonder with how you grew up.”

 

Harry grimaced and Sam seemed to realise exactly what he’d just said.

 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

 

“It’s fine. It’s all true after all.” Harry sighed. “I’m completely useless at talking to other people and I’m totally socially inept. I don’t like people and I hate being forced to interact with them. I never know what they’re going to do or say and I hate not knowing.”

 

Sam put a hand on his shoulder and bent down until he was eye level with him, which meant he was bent almost completely in half.

 

“We’re not like those people, Harry. We’re going to help you, not hurt you. You’ll see.”

 

Harry smiled and stepped forward to hug Sam. He liked the feeling of those big arms holding him back too.

 

“Thank you, Sam.” Harry said. “Now tell me why Dean said you’re preserving my innocence. What does that mean?”

 

“Nope.” Sam said with his own grin as he ruffled Harry’s hair.

 

“You’re both horrible.” Harry scoffed. “I just want to know! I’m curious.” He insisted.

 

“Not until you’re eighteen.” Sam told him.

 

“Fine, I’ll just ask Google.” Harry grinned.

 

“Don’t. Seriously, don’t. It’ll scar you for life.” Sam said seriously and Harry frowned, trying to figure out if Sam was actually being serious or just joking. He couldn’t tell.

 

Sam left him to go to Dean and Harry wondered if Sam was telling him the truth about asking Google about his innocence. He didn’t think he was all that innocent, especially not after the tri-wizard tournament. Then his brothers didn’t know about that, so maybe they just thought that he was innocent when in actual fact, he wasn’t.

He sighed and sat himself on the scrubby, ill-kempt grass. He had grass stains all over and a couple of blades stuck to his knees and his hands were dirty, but he didn’t mind. It reminded him of Privet Drive though and all the times he was forced outside in the sweltering heat to do the gardening before he could eat and even then sometimes he wasn’t allowed any food afterwards, just a glass of water. He liked it better here as he watched Dean shout at Sam for doing something to the car that he didn’t like.

 

“Don’t touch my baby again!” Dean yelled at Sam’s retreating back.

 

Harry chuckled as he watched them, trying to figure out how they acted and reacted to one another as they interacted. It was all strange and new and no brothers he’d ever known ever acted like Sam and Dean did. Then again he only really knew the Weasleys.

Harry got up again, ignoring the pinch of pain from his body, and he went looking at the solitary tree that was within Bobby’s boundary lines, hoping to find a bird or maybe some more butterflies or even a beehive.

 

“Don’t go trying to climb that.” John called to him from the porch. “You’ll rip out your stitches.”

 

Harry smiled and he turned around and he went to sit beside John, watching him curiously.

 

“Do you know what this is?” John asked him as he clicked open the gun and rubbed an oily cloth over it.

 

“A gun.”

 

John snorted. “Do you know what sort?”

 

Harry stared at the gun, but it just looked like a gun to him. A very big, long gun. He shook his head.

 

“I just know that it’s a gun.”

 

“How do you not recognise a shotgun when you see one?”

 

“I’ve never seen one before.” Harry insisted. He studied the shotgun though…Ellen had threatened to use it on Paul if he had come into the Roadhouse after him. He understood better now why it would have been such a huge deterrent.

 

“You’ve never seen a shotgun before?” Dean asked him as he sat on Harry’s other side, wiping his hands clean of oil on a rag.

 

Harry shook his head.

 

“Not even in cartoons?”

 

“I’ve never been allowed to watch cartoons.” Harry told them softly.

 

The both of them took deep breaths and looked to be restraining themselves from shouting or from violence. Harry watched them curiously, a warm flutter in his belly at the new, unfamiliar emotions running through him.

 

“This is a handgun.” Dean told him, taking a gun from the pile that John had beside him.

 

Dean checked it over before he placed it in Harry’s hand and Harry frowned, passing it from hand to hand.

 

“Are you right or left handed?” Dean asked him suddenly, as if it had occurred to him that maybe Harry was left handed, which would compromise his grip on the right handed gun.

 

“Right handed. It’s just really heavy.” Harry said as he passed the gun into his right hand. “Is this country really so dangerous that everyone needs a gun?”

 

“Yes.” Dean told him shortly as he twisted Harry around and cupped his hands, showing him how to hold the gun and repositioning his hands and his back, kicking his legs further apart.

 

“Right foot forward.” John said from the side lines as he watched critically.

 

Dean used his own foot to push Harry’s further forward and Harry was seriously uncomfortable with the way that he was standing.

 

“This is horrible.” He complained as he tried to hold his body steady. “How do you do this for longer than ten seconds?”

 

“Practice.” John told him. “Practice and routine.”

 

“How does a gun protect you?” Harry asked curiously. “Having a gun doesn’t stop other people from shooting your head off.”

 

“The idea is to shoot them before they blow your head off.”

 

“Bloody savages.” Harry complained. “Death isn’t a game. I don’t like it and I don’t like holding this.”

 

Harry handed the gun back to Dean and wandered into the house to get his books. He came back out and he got the distinct impression that he’d interrupted an argument between Dean and John as he sat in the rickety chair on the porch and cracked open his book to carry on from where he’d left off.

From the mutters and hisses and then finally John stalking off, Harry assumed that whatever fight they’d been having, that Dean had actually won it.

He used the weathered old table to rest his notebook on and he spent another few hours reading and writing. John, who’d driven off in his big truck, didn’t come back in time for lunch.

When dinner time rolled around and John still wasn’t back, Harry was worried that he’d done something to ruin everything, but Dean and Sam didn’t even seem bothered or at all concerned that their Father was gone and hadn’t yet come back. It helped to calm him down a little, perhaps this was a usual occurrence? Maybe John always left for a long time after an argument.

Even so, by the time the night rolled around, Harry was almost a nervous wreck and he couldn’t focus or concentrate on anything as he sat and waited for John to come home. He wanted the assurance that he hadn’t upset him or angered him in anyway and not getting that reassurance was almost painful.

When eleven O’clock came around, and Bobby had forced two pills onto him, Harry was too drowsy to keep himself awake and it was Dean who forced him up to bed, taking the place that John usually did as he was escorted up the stairs, just in case he toppled over due to the strong painkillers, and even tucking him in.

 

“I used to do this with Sam.” Dean muttered nostalgically.

 

“But you’re only four years older than Sam.” Harry frowned.

 

“Sometimes it felt like I was twenty years older than him.” Dean said quietly as he made obsessively sure that the blankets were tucked around him. “You’re going to be fine, Harry. We’re going to make sure you’re fine.”

 

Harry got the impression that Dean was just rambling through his thoughts as he stared at the blanket covering Harry’s body.

 

“We’ve come to care for you a great deal, which is saying something given how dysfunctional we all are.” Dean laughed humourlessly. “But you can bet that we’re gonna protect you. There is nothing that’s ever going to touch you again, not without going through me first. I’m always gonna protect you and Sammy.”

 

“I can take care of myself, Dean and I’m not stupid. I know how to get myself out of trouble.”

 

“You don’t have to anymore.” Dean told him firmly. “You have me now.”

 

“Is…is he coming back?”

 

“Who, Dad? Of course he’s coming back, once he’s cooled off and pulled his head out from the inside of his arse.”

 

Harry gaped at Dean and his brother chuckled and ruffled his hair, frowning as it uncovered the lightning bolt scar on Harry’s forehead. He rubbed his thumb over it, but it was smooth, there wasn’t anything there to feel. It was an old scar, ages old and Dean had to swallow down a tidal wave of anger that wanted to rage out about the people who had done this to his own brother, about the people who were supposed to have cared for and protected him.

 

“Get some sleep and don’t worry about Dad, he’ll be back before you know it.”

 

“What if he isn’t back?”

 

“He will come back.”

 

“Promise?”

 

“Yeah. Don’t worry about him, Harry. Just let the painkillers do their job and get some sleep. If Dad isn’t back soon, me and Sammy are still here for you. But Dad will come back sooner or later, he always does.”

 

Harry nodded and he stopped fighting against the drowsiness caused by the pills he’d taken. He couldn’t wait until he no longer needed them.

Dean stayed and watched as Harry slipped off to sleep under the effect of the strong painkillers and he sighed, allowing the anger he felt to finally show, at those people and at his Dad for leaving like he did and making Harry so worried and insecure. All because of an argument over Harry not wanting to touch a gun.

Their Dad had wanted to force Harry into handling one and force him to learn how to shoot. Dean had argued against it when he’d seen the disgust on Harry’s face as he handed the gun back to him. Harry was never going to be comfortable handling guns and there was nothing that they could do about it. He was from a different country, one which didn’t have guns and where handling any sort of gun was illegal. Harry was from a different world to the one they lived in and they couldn’t change that. Forcing Harry to adapt completely to them wasn’t fair and Dean didn’t want to force Harry into doing anything that he didn’t want to do, especially when it wasn’t needed. It wasn’t like Harry was ever going to be going on hunts with them. Surely that wasn’t what their Dad was aiming at, because if it was, Dean wouldn’t allow it.

Dean smiled as he brushed the back of his fingers over Harry’s baby smooth cheeks before he sighed, tucking Harry in more firmly before leaving the room and going back downstairs. He needed to talk to Sam about what had happened with the gun and his fears over what their Dad wanted to teach Harry. They needed to protect Harry, and teach him how to protect himself, but that didn’t mean they had to force him to become a hunter like them either.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

John didn’t come back the next day and Dean and Sam noticed the drastic change in Harry as he withdrew completely into himself. He barely ate anything, despite their coaxing and he refused to take his pain pills despite Bobby’s best efforts. They all noticed that he was in pain too as he kept shifting his stitched shoulder agitatedly and flinching if he twisted his body even slightly.

Dean had already slipped out and left a very angry voicemail for their Dad, telling him exactly what his absence was doing to Harry. He couldn’t believe that his Dad had just gone and left for this long without calling Harry at least, they all had his cell number after Sam had suggested they all swap numbers, just in case.

 

“I knew he was angry, but this is fucking stupid.” Dean complained to Sam as they watched Harry angrily bat away another attempt that Bobby had made to get him take the pills.

 

“Harry’s so insecure at the moment that he’s getting stressed.” Sam told him with a sigh. “He’s back to being uncomfortable around us because he’s blaming himself for Dad leaving. He doesn’t know any of us well enough yet to know that this is just what Dad does.”

 

“I wish we could just get him to eat something.” Dean growled. “He hasn’t eaten properly all day and he’s skin and bone as it is.”

 

“He needs those painkillers too. It has crossed my mind that maybe he’s punishing himself for Dad leaving.”

 

“What? Why?!” Dean demanded. “He had no part in that. If anyone’s to blame it’s me!”

 

Sam bit his lip and looked at Harry before looking back to Dean. “He kept an open wound in his back, Dee. I’ve been looking things up online and I checked into why someone would do that and I found a site that mentioned something similar, what I read made sense. Harry said it himself that he was ‘punished’ for stupid reasons and I read that a child who is constantly punished for small things or even made up things, they start to punish _themselves_ for things that they think they’ve done wrong. The open wound in his back, not taking his painkillers, it adds up, Dean.”

 

“So you’re saying that Harry isn’t eating or taking his pills because he’s punishing himself because he thinks that he’s the reason that Dad’s gone?”

 

Sam nodded.

 

Dean cursed. “I’m going to fucking kill Dad when he gets back for this. Right, you read the site, what do we do to stop him punishing himself for shit that isn’t his fault?”

 

Sam shrugged. “It’s a state of mind, Dean. It’ll take time to get him to stop thinking like he needs to punish himself when things go wrong.”

 

“So, you’re saying that we do nothing?!” Dean demanded, giving Sam a look, incredulously raised eyebrow and all.

 

“I’m saying that we can try, but we’re not going to change a childhood of abuse in a couple of hours. We need to be patient with him.”

 

Dean nodded and shoved a hand through his short, bristly hair. “Right, I can try to talk to him, tell him it was my fault Dad left, not his.”

 

“Don’t expect it to work, he’ll likely think you’re just saying that to get him to eat or take his pills.”

 

“For fucks sake.” Dean groaned. “Won’t anything work? I can’t sit here and watch him starve and writhe around in pain.”

 

“I’ve got an idea, it might not work, but I can try.”

 

“Alright, let’s hear it. I’ll try anything at this point.”

 

Sam shook his head. “No, you won’t like it and if this doesn’t work, he’ll need you.”

 

“Sam!” Dean hissed at him as his brother made his way over to Harry. Sam ignored him and Dean cursed and wandered back into the safety of the kitchen, Bobby joined him a moment later, looking old and weary.

 

“That kid’s more stubborn than all of you.” He complained as he wiped his forehead with the side of his hand and replaced the ball cap on his head. “What’s Sam saying to him?”

 

“No idea, but if it works I don’t care. I can’t believe this!” He burst out, resuming his angry pacing. “A week he’s been with us and Dad already bails! We all knew it was gonna be difficult, but at least me an’ Sam are trying here, Bobby! We don’t get the option of bailing and going to hunt, not with Harry, but at the first sign of trouble, that’s exactly what Dad does! Doesn’t he care about any of us at all?”

 

“He does and you know he does.” Bobby told him sternly.

 

“I do, but Harry doesn’t!” Dean said through clenched fists and gritted teeth. “He could have at least told Harry where he was going, he could call him and say when he’s coming back! No, he just left and now Harry feels abandoned and he won’t eat or take his pills and I don’t know what to do here, Bobby! What am I supposed to do?”

 

“You sit down and grab a coffee.” Bobby told him. “Let Sam talk to him and then if that doesn’t work, we’ll try something else. We ain’t giving up on that boy.”

 

Dean breathed out deeply and sat heavily in a chair. Bobby made him a coffee and placed it in front of him as they both sat quietly, trying to listen out for anything from the other room, but it was all silent.

 

“I can’t stand this.” Dean complained half an hour later. “How do we know they’re still in there?”

 

“They’re still there.” Bobby told him. “Give Sam some time to talk to him.”

 

At the hour mark, Dean’s foot was continuously bouncing off of the floor and he was feeling antsy about sitting still for so long. He was just about to go and drag Sam away and demand what was happening when Sam himself walked into the kitchen.

 

“Well?!” He demanded, more angrily than he’d intended.

 

“He ate an apple and took his pills. He’s sleeping.” Sam told him softly as he sat himself in a chair.

 

“How’d you manage that?” Bobby asked as Dean blew out a relieved breath.

 

“I, sort of blackmailed him into it.” Sam admitted with a sigh. “I told him that he was upsetting us by not eating and not taking his pills because I knew the last thing that he would want to do at the moment is upset us like he thinks he’s upset Dad. He likes it here, he likes being with us, he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise that.”

 

“So, you tricked him into it by using us potentially abandoning him like he thinks Dad has if he didn’t do what we say?” Dean asked.

 

Sam nodded. “Basically. We both know that we’d never throw him out on his ass, we just needed to get him to eat something and take those pills. I never actually said we’d abandon him, I said he was upsetting us, which he was. I just left him to come to his own conclusion about what that meant and as an abused kid, he is overly paranoid and he overthought it and he came to the worst case scenario first an took it as the truth which is us sending him back to where he came from.”

 

“That’s not right, Sam.” Dean growled.

 

“I know it’s not!” Sam defended. “I told you that you wouldn’t like it, but he ate something and he took his pills. Now as soon as Dad’s back and smooths this over, we can go back to reassuring him and breaking this mind set of his.”

 

“What mind set?” Bobby demanded.

 

Sam sighed. “He wasn’t eating or taking the pills as a sort of punishment to himself because those people he lived with used to punish him for stupid reasons or even fabricated ones that Harry never actually did.”

 

“They made up bad behaviour just so they could punish him?” Bobby asked, appalled.

 

Sam nodded. “Now Harry thinks it’s normal to punish himself if he does things that he thinks are his fault.”

 

“And he thinks that Dad getting angry and leaving is his fault.” Dean added.

 

“So he’s starving himself and not taking his pills so he’ll be in constant pain as a punishment to himself.” Sam finished.

 

“Oh hell.” Bobby sighed and massaged the area just under the rim of his ball cap. “John needs to get back here yesterday.”

 

“Don’t we know it.” Sam sighed. “But hey, Harry’s sleeping right now, we need to call around a bit and see if anyone’s seen Dad. I’m not sure using the excuse of us being upset is going to work a second time on Harry, so when he wakes up, he’s probably not gonna eat or take any more pills if Dad’s still not here.”

 

“I’m gonna kill him when he gets back.” Dean said seriously.

 

“Get in line, kid.” Bobby told him, just as seriously.

 

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ X

 

Harry woke up slowly and in stages. He frowned as he found that his eyelids were heavy and he was overly warm. He slipped an arm out of the blanket that was tucked up around him and thought of maybe opening his eyes and sitting up, but he was so comfortable that he didn’t really want to. Not yet.

At least he didn’t until someone carefully took his arm and gently manhandled it back under his blanket before tucking the blanket back under his chin. He blinked while his eyes were still closed before he peeled them open carefully, staring blearily up through the searing light at a sheepish Dean.

 

“Time’s it?” He asked sleepily.

 

“Almost five.” Dean answered, sitting on the edge of the settee and blocking out most of the light streaming in through the living room window.

 

Harry forced his eyes open and blinked a couple of times, raising his hands to rub at them to get them used to the light level before looking back at Dean, who was smirking at him.

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing. You’re just really cute.”

 

Harry scoffed and went to sit himself up, but he suddenly found himself pulled up by Dean’s large hands. The blanket was automatically tucked in around his hips to keep his legs covered. He was used to Dean’s teasing and fussing by now and he mostly ignored it.

Harry yawned widely as he woke up more and he looked around the deserted living room.

 

“He’s still not back, is he?”

 

“Nah, not yet. He will be though. He does this all the time, Harry. Hell before you went looking for us, me and Sammy hadn’t seen him in about nine weeks.”

 

“But why?” Harry asked.

 

“We have the same job, but Dad is in a class of his own, so me and Sammy stick together and Dad goes off and does another job elsewhere.”

 

Harry frowned and bit a heavily scabbed lip.

 

“Stop doing that, you’ll pull the scab off again and make it bleed and it’ll take twice as long to heal.” Dean chastised him, using a thumb to ease the lip out from between little teeth.

 

“Am I stopping you all from doing your jobs?” He asked guiltily, his large green eyes so wide and pathetic that Dean wanted to hold him close and keep him shielded from everything bad in the world.

 

“No!” Dean replied immediately. “To tell you the truth it’s been great taking a break for once and meeting you is way more important.”

 

Harry’s cheeks went slightly red as he blushed, but he looked very pleased, so Dean assumed that he’d definitely said something right and he mentally applauded himself.

 

“Come on then. Up you get. Bobby’s got dinner on and you probably need to stretch your legs.”

 

Dean helped Harry stand and then tried not to hover over him as he stretched out his back and then made his way to the kitchen.

 

“Hey sleeping beauty.” Sam greeted with a smile.

 

Harry actually smiled back and sat next to him. Sam threw an arm around him, careful of his still bruised body and the stitches and gave him a short hug, but it made Harry smile widely as he accepted the glass of milk that Dean put in front of him.

Harry frowned at the glass and he sighed, drinking it down with a grimace.

 

“Do you not like milk?” Dean asked with a frown.

 

“I’ve never had it before.” Harry said as he pulled a face at the slightly sour, strange taste of the white liquid.

 

“Do you like cheese or yoghurt?” Bobby asked him.

 

Harry shrugged. “Cheese is alright, but I haven’t tried yoghurt either.”

 

“How much cheese do you eat?”

 

“Not much, why?” Harry asked with a frown.

 

“You probably have a calcium deficiency.” Bobby told him. “God knows what else you might be deficient in thanks to those people.”

 

Harry looked down at the table.

 

“Hey, that’s not your fault, Harry. It’s theirs.” Sam told him gently. “We’re going to take care of you now that you’re staying with us permanently.”

 

Harry looked back up quickly before looking at all three of them. “I can stay?”

 

“Of course you’re staying!” Dean burst out. “Face it, you’re stuck with us now.”

 

Harry grinned so widely and happily that it stretched one of his scabs too far and it cracked and started to bleed. Dean sighed and tore off a sheet of paper towel and cleaned it up for Harry, whose wide, expressive green eyes stared into his unwaveringly. The trust and happiness in those eyes hurt Dean’s heart. He really was going to kill his Dad. He didn’t know how he could stay away from Harry, not from those puppy eyes that were so happy.

Bobby served up large plates of food and they all watched subtly, but worriedly, as Harry seemed to just sit there and stare. They wondered for half a moment if he was going to refuse to eat again before he snapped himself out of whatever thoughts he was thinking and shifted slightly closer to the table, picked up his fork and he just started eating with no fuss. His eyes were still slightly distant, and he seemed to be eating on automatic, but at least he was actually eating now and they could all take a moment to just breathe in relief over that. How long it would last, they didn’t know, but for now, Harry was eating an actual meal and he seemed somewhat happy for the first time since John had left.

 

“You want to watch a film after dinner?” Dean asked him. “I went out and got soda and popcorn.”

 

Harry smiled at that and he nodded. “Yes, please.”

 

“God you make me feel like an uncouth heathen.” Dean complained.

 

“You are an uncouth heathen.” Sam pointed out and Harry chuckled, turning away and drinking more milk.

 

“Laugh it up, I’ll corrupt you yet! You’ll be an uncouth heathen too in no time!” Dean told him and Harry laughed again. “There will be no more of this polite Britishness.”

 

Harry couldn’t help the laugh this time as Dean impersonated the accent of a stereotypical Englishman…very badly.

 

“Ow!” He complained, scowling and touching his hand to his ribs.

 

That was the end of his peace as Bobby stood and got his pills for him and Dean got him a glass of water to gulp down the pills. He was watched closely and he sighed, but he was feeling odd, strange, he had never felt so many confusing feelings before in his life. He didn’t know how to deal with them or even how to interpret them, so he pushed them away again.

Once he was done, he allowed Dean and Sam to sandwich him between them with glass bottles of coke, crisps and popcorn and Dean put another old film on for him to watch. It was nice to share in with such a personal bond with his two brothers, sharing in with something that they liked to do and he found himself relaxing and laughing with both Dean and Sam, spreading out between them, not even noticing that he was touching them both or that they were touching him. He didn’t care and he was completely comfortable between them both.

The evening passed quickly because he was enjoying himself so much and Dean even allowed him to stay up past his ‘bedtime’ to watch one final film. Laughing at Dean, who was quoting the lines at him and Sam, who told him to shut the hell up already, which made Harry laugh more.

It was gone midnight by the time Bobby insisted that Harry go up to bed and he did so reluctantly, with both Sam and Dean escorting him.

 

“Go do your teeth, dude.” Dean ordered and Harry, who had just popped his head out of the hole of his pyjama top, nodded and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face.

 

He crawled into his bed and wriggled around a little to get comfortable as Sam and Dean hovered over him.

 

“Are you alright?” Sam asked him.

 

“Don’t engage his brain before he goes to sleep, Sam!” Dean said. “Let him go to sleep.”

 

“I’m okay.” Harry said softly.

 

“No pain?” Dean asked, staring at him hard.

 

Harry shook his head as he was tucked in. “No. I’m okay, really.”

 

“Don’t worry about Dad.” Dean told him. “He will be back and it was me who made him leave. It was me he was arguing with.”

 

“Over me.” Harry said.

 

“Nah, not about you, about our job.” Dean insisted so blithely that Harry had no other choice but to accept it and not argue.

 

He nodded, settling down, and he yawned widely. He closed his eyes and laid still, waiting as he heard his brothers leave the room. He turned onto his back and opened his eyes, staring up at the dark ceiling.

He wondered if John would come back. He knew he shouldn’t have made so many waves, the Dursleys had taught him that much. He grimaced as he remembered some of the hard, painful lessons that he’d had to learn over the years. He should have known better than to argue or make waves.

He took a deep breath and rolled back onto his side, looking at John’s empty bed beside his own. He bit his lip and he swore to himself to do better. He didn’t want to go back to the Dursleys, not ever. He couldn’t go back to being a slave or a punching bag now, not when he knew that he had a biological Father and two, full blooded brothers. It just wouldn’t be fair, so he swore to do better, he swore not to make any more trouble. He didn’t want to give John, or Dean and Sam, any reason at all to send him back to Britain, back to his painful existence with the Dursleys and the dangers of the magical world. He had to just shut his mouth and do everything that he was told to do, even if he didn’t like it. As soon as John came back, as Dean and Sam insisted that he would be back at some point, he would ask to learn how to use the guns, even though he didn’t like them and the thought of actually using them on either a person or an animal made him want to throw up. He needed to be better, he needed to act how they wanted him to act or they would send him straight back to the Dursleys and he knew that he would never get a second chance like this ever again. He had thought that the Dursleys were his only blood relatives, but one trip to Gringotts had disproved that. He was not at all blood related to the Dursleys and he had a living Father and two older brothers, and that was more than he had ever thought he’d get after learning of his own ‘story’.

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He couldn’t give them a reason to get rid of him. He couldn’t argue or make waves. He would do everything that he was now told to do with no questions or fussing. He really wanted to stay here and not just because he didn’t want to go back to Britain or to the Dursleys or the waiting war with Voldemort, but because he had come to like it here, he had come to like Sam and Dean and he wanted to stay with them. He wanted to get to know them better, Bobby and John too, and he wanted to know them properly, like real family and he wanted them to like him in return.

Sighing out loud in the darkness of his room, he made up his mind to be better, to try harder. He was very used to doing as such at the Dursleys, and at Hogwarts too if he were honest. No one truly knew who Harry Potter was because no one wanted to know who the real Harry Potter was. He hadn’t even known his own name or parentage, so really, how could he expect others to know the real him when he didn’t even know who the real him was. He felt more alone in that moment than he ever had before, devoid of his own personality and sense of self. Who was he truly? It was sad when he realised that he couldn’t even answer that fundamental question. He didn’t know who he was as he’d never truly known himself.

He’d never been allowed to express himself or his own desires, the Dursleys had seen to that, and then he’d been thrust into a mould when he escaped to the wizarding world. He was to be their saviour, the Boy-Who-Lived, their little scapegoat and a sacrificial lamb all rolled into one and he’d never even gotten the chance to say no to all of that. It had immediately been dumped on his shoulders, from the very first moment that Hagrid had taken him into the Leaky Cauldron and he’d had his hand shaken by every patron inside the pub. From that moment onwards, he had been forced to take up the mantel of the saviour, of the wizarding world’s expectations and he had never had any other choice but to shoulder that pressure too.

He had thought that by coming here, by finding his true blood family, that he could finally find out who he truly was, what he truly wanted, but it seemed that he was destined to always live up to the expectations of others, never those of himself. He was not going to get the chance to do what he wanted to do, he was not going to get the chance to explore himself. He had gone from one mask, to a mould and now he was going to have to make a new one to fit in here too. It wasn’t fair, but he had to make the best of it.

He had two options now, the Dursleys and Hogwarts, or here with the Winchesters and out of the two options, being able to stay here, with his real Father and his older brothers, it was the better option in his opinion. It was the one that he wanted and being able to choose that for himself was more than he’d ever gotten to choose for himself in his life. It would be alright, he consoled himself. Everything would end up fine, because he was now going to force himself into a new mould, one that would allow him to fit in perfectly here, with his blood family, so that they wouldn’t have a reason to ever get rid of him. Everything would be fine as long as he was allowed to stay here with his family, so he would make it happen, no matter the cost or personal sacrifice it required.

 

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A/N: I promised this chapter tonight and I was determined to do it. So here we have our next chapter for Tainted Blood. Don’t worry about John either, he’s just doing what John does, he’ll be back.

For those asking about Hedwig, it’ll take her a while to reach Harry, but she is on her way.

 

 **HP Girl 28** : This is set in season 2, but certain events of that season didn’t happen because I wanted a family fic, so I needed John.

 

 **Riel Sanet** : He wants to do both, he wants to be both a magical and a muggle vet for wild animals, not domesticated ones.

 

Our next update will be The Rise of the Drackens, now that real life is actually cutting me a break, so if you’re reading that fic, I’ll see you next week.

As always, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this chapter and I’ll be back with it whenever I can between all my other fics,

 

StarLight Massacre. X


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